


Five Times Hawkeye and Trapper Kissed and Made Up

by rosiesbar



Series: In All Kinds Of Weather [13]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arguing, Bad Sex, Bigotry & Prejudice, Birthday, Christmas, Discrimination, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fourth of July, Holidays, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Makeup Sex, Post-Series, Post-War, Relationship Problems, Reminiscing, Sexual Harassment, Valentine's Day, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9024946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiesbar/pseuds/rosiesbar
Summary: Two things that tend to happen between couples during the holidays – arguments, and sex. As Hawkeye and Trapper mark several special occasions together, things get heated – in more ways than one. Can the boys ‘kiss and make up’ when times get rough? Can they keep their spark alive as the years pass? Only time will tell, but as they approach a decade together, a few home truths are beginning to become clear…





	1. ONE...

**Author's Note:**

> Mature content and sexual themes throughout (and rated accordingly). In the interests of keeping this instalment accessible to more readers (I know not everybody likes smut), I have limited the full/heavy sex scenes to the latter sections of chapters 1 and 5, and tried to keep them relatively non-graphic. However, due to the theme of the fic, all chapters include some sexual content and/or references.

 

** December 1957 **

Trapper stirred, shifting reluctantly from peaceful dozing to full wakefulness. His eyes flickered open, and a messy head of jet black hair streaked with grey came into focus.

The sun was already up, its weak December rays already penetrating the flimsy, age-worn drapes that hung in the windows of their miserable little bedroom. Given the time of year, that was a fair indicator that they’d slept most of the day away…

‘ _Not enough…_ ’

No sooner had Trapper made a move to rouse himself, than the figure beside him stirred, and two cold, skinny arms snaked around his torso. Trapper resisted the urge to pull away.

“Morning, sugar.” The words were breathed in his ear without much of a pretence at disguising their seductive intent. A moment later, the lips that had uttered them began peppering little butterfly kisses down the side of his neck.

“What do _you_ want?”

Trapper hadn’t intended to sound so grumpy – he’d actually been aiming for something casually indifferent or maybe even playful– but the sigh of annoyance that escaped him soon put pay to that.

Trapper’s tone, despite his intentions, reeked of sarcasm and anger. The embrace came to a swift end, as Hawkeye pulled away and flopped onto his back, scowling at the ceiling. “Oh, well, _that’s_ nice! Merry Christmas to you too!” He thumped his pillow and turned away to scowl at the wall instead, thrusting two bony shoulder blades in Trapper’s direction.

Trapper felt a stab of guilt. It had been six weeks now. Six weeks since Hawkeye had made a disastrous attempt at persuading Louise to grant him more regular access to his children. Six weeks since his ex-wife had finally declared that, thanks to his partner’s appalling conduct, John McIntyre would no longer have visitation rights. Six weeks since he had found himself faced with the prospect that he would never see his daughters ever again. And almost as long since he had been presented with the legal documentation that declared that prospect to be a cold, hard reality.

And now, faced with his first Christmas away from the children he adored so much, his foul mood didn’t show any sign of lifting.

And yet, here was Hawkeye angling for some action…

Trapper tried very, very hard to be patient. “Hawkeye?” His words were soft and calm, but spoken through slightly gritted teeth. “It’s nothin’ personal, but I really ain’t in the mood.”

Something between a hiss and a sigh came from Hawkeye’s side of the bed as, with some effort, he calmed himself mid-strop, smoothing his pillow out from the twisted lump into which he had pummelled it. “And who said _I_ was? Did an explicit request for a half hour of heavy breathing pass my lips?”

Trapper burrowed deeper under the blankets. “I know a hint when I get it…”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Hawkeye huffed, crawling back into his usual spot just beside Trapper and staring up the ceiling.

“Then what _were_ ya doin’?”

“I was kissing you! It’s a quaint little custom we have back in Maine, I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed it until now.”

Trapper scowled. “Well, knock it off.”

“It’s _Christmas_ , for God’s sake! Forgive me if I was trying to make it a little special!”

Snorting, Trapper slumped onto his back, studying the patch of mildew on the ceiling that seemed to grow with each passing week. “What’s so special about it? Ain’t neither of us workin’. Ain’t got two cents to rub together. Hell, we can’t even afford a tree! An’ all I can think right now is that there are two little girls out there spendin’ Christmas without their father!”

Hawkeye fell silent. He had nothing to offer in the face of this. They’d been through it enough times, and apologising just seemed to make Trapper yell more. Hawkeye didn’t feel like being yelled at – not on Christmas morning – so, for one of the rare times in his life, he stayed silent.

A silent Hawkeye, however, was a worrying thing to the man who lived with his incessant gabbing, day in and day out. Trapper turned. He found Hawkeye contemplating his navel, worrying at his thumb with his teeth.

Sensing an audience, Hawkeye’s hand dropped to his lap and he glanced over. “How much longer are you planning on punishing me? I mean, just a ball park, so I can mark the days off on the wall of my dog house.”

Trapper winced. Hawkeye wasn’t stupid, and yet somehow he kept thinking he could fool him.

Trapper had dwelled on the issue for some time. He’d had plenty of time to dwell: he’d been fired from his latest job stacking shelves in a supermarket after he’d thrown baby formula at a customer (a dumb, arrogant son of a bitch who didn’t seem to know a damned thing about parenting and should never, in Trapper’s eyes, have been allowed to have kids in the first place). Sitting in the bar just round the corner from his former employer’s store, Trapper had run over his litany time and time again: that Louise would have found an excuse sooner or later; that he mustn’t be angry with Hawkeye; _couldn’t_ be angry with Hawkeye.

And so, with his feelings safely buried, he’d been short, snippy, bad-tempered, withdrawn, unaffectionate and rude to him instead. But never _angry_.

Without looking him in the eye, Trapper stared down at the blankets and mumbled the words he knew Hawkeye needed to hear: “It ain’t your fault, Hawk.” The words were calm, evenly spoken, but never quite sincere. No matter how many times he had spoken them, Trapper could never quite _feel_ them. Maybe that would come in time.

Hawkeye sighed, gazing up at the ceiling in the hope of keeping his eyes from watering. “Then how come I keep feeling like it is?”

Trapper snorted. The phrase ‘ _guilty conscience_ ’ fluttered across his mind before he could stop it. He kept his mouth shut.

In the absence of a response, Hawkeye sighed. “So, are we going to get up, or are you sleeping in ‘til New Year?”

“I’m gonna get a bit more sack time, if that’s okay.”

The disappointed grumble suggested that it wasn’t, but Hawkeye said nothing.

As he pushed himself up from the pillows, Trapper reached over and rested a gentle hand on his arm. It was the nearest he’d got to an affectionate gesture in weeks. “Hey. Sorry if I ain’t exactly a bundle of fun lately. It’ll get better. I promise.”

Hawkeye’s lip twitched into a pathetic attempt at a smile. “Okay.”

He leaned over and gave Trapper a little peck of a kiss – one more tiny step back to normality – and swung his legs out from under the blankets. Trapper wasted no time in cocooning himself as soon as he had them all to himself, rolling himself up in the bedding like a giant silkworm. He faintly heard Hawkeye roll out of bed and start rummaging about on the bedroom floor for his clothes, but was already asleep again before he was finished.

 

* * *

 

“Hey.”

Trapper awoke to a gentle shaking from Hawkeye, and a smell of food wafting through from the kitchen. His stomach lurched a little in that uncomfortable way it always used to when he was on call at the hospital and the phone rang – shift work never agreed with him – and brought with it the sickening reminder of all the years of hard graft he’d invested in a career he had no hope of re-entering. He grumbled as he struggled to get his bearings, opening his eyes to find Hawkeye leaning over him. “What do you want?”

Hawkeye was lingering at his bedside, wrapped in his old black robe. “I made dinner.” His voice was unusually quiet, tentative, and almost pitifully hopeful. “Do you want to come through and eat?”

Trapper rolled away from him and stared at the ceiling. “Not really.”

Sighing, Hawkeye sat on the side of the bed, resting heavily on his elbows. “Well, do you think _maybe_ you could do it anyway, so I don’t have to spend Christmas Day by myself in an empty apartment? I mean, not that I don’t love my own company, but it takes two people to pull the crackers, and my collection of dumb jokes is running low.”

“Thank the lord for small mercies…” Trapper immediately regretted the comment when he saw the look on Hawkeye’s face, and, as if hoping to ease any offence, he gave him a weak smile to show he didn’t mean it. “Fine. I’ll be with ya as soon as I haul my sorry ass out of this pit.”

“Don’t be too long. I have a surprise for you. Might cheer you up a little.” Hawkeye slipped away, returning to whatever surprise festivities he had planned.

But Trapper didn’t feel in the slightest bit festive. His whole body felt heavy as he dragged himself out of bed, scrambled through his drawers for a pair of pants and a shirt and sweater – not the ridiculous Rudolph one Hawkeye had bought him a couple of years ago – and tried to put on a happy face besides as he exited the bedroom and went to face the world.

The sight that greeted him made him stop dead in the doorway. Hawkeye had toilet-papered the living room! In the absence of a tree or garlands or anything else, he had strewn the rafters of their loft with the stuff! The old wood burner had a decent fire going in it for the first time in its life, and the coffee table was placed in front of it, carefully laid with plates and silverware, and with a bottle of wine. Hawkeye stood in the midst of his festive creation, smiling proudly, and wearing a tuxedo, a yellow party hat, and slipper-socks.

To Trapper, in his current mood, it was the most ridiculous, inappropriate display he’d ever seen. “What in the heck are you dressed like that for?”

Hawkeye’s smile vanished.

Trapper jabbed a finger towards the toilet paper hanging from the rafters. “You realise we just gotta clean all this up tomorrow?”

Hawkeye shoulders slumped and he looked away. “I just thought…”

“You _thought?_ There was _thought_ involved in this?! _What_ did ya think, Hawk? You thought you’d put on a tux an’ toilet-paper the livin’ room, an’ I’d suddenly feel full o’ the joys of the season?” He snorted, and Hawkeye stared at his socks. “Take that off, Hawk. Ya look like a moron. Dressed for a goddamn black-tie soiree an’ we’re livin’ in a mould-infested attic!”

The insult hung in the air as a heavy silence stretched out. The electronic buzz of the kitchen timer broke it. Hawkeye looked up. “That’ll be our Christmas dinner.” With those quiet words, he whipped his hat off, sank dejectedly onto the cushions he’d laid out beside the coffee table in the warm glow of the fireplace, and began gnawing at his thumb-nail, eyes downcast, long limbs folded in as if to shield himself.

And Trapper suddenly wanted the ground to swallow him up. He turned away, his face flushing, feeling hideously embarrassed by his own foul temper. What a Scrooge he was! Where had that all come from? Struggling to find the words to apologise, he floundered for a moment, mouth opening and closing helplessly, but any attempt to make amends caught in his throat. He felt like somebody had let all the air out of him!

Hoping to redeem himself by making himself useful, he shuffled off to the kitchen to retrieve the meal Hawkeye had prepared for them.

The oven hit him in the face with a wave of hot air, and he squinted as he reached into the darkness with one grubby pot-holder. He withdrew a baking tray, upon which was perched a sad little cuboid of roasted meat. “Ya made meatloaf?”

Without looking over, Hawkeye shrugged. “Three bird roast,” he muttered in the direction of the fireplace. “It’s like turducken only cheaper. It was on sale in the store a couple of days ago. Don’t get too excited – it’s probably all spleens and eyeballs.”

Trapper’s wave of guilt turned into a tsunami. How long had Hawkeye been planning all this? Their modest selection of decent china – mostly gifts from Daniel and heirlooms from Hawkeye’s family – sat stacked on the counter beside the stove, and a little sprig of holly had been clipped from its parent tree and sat waiting on the serving dish.

Trapper set to work.

A moment later, Hawkeye was stirred from his fireside vigil when Trapper approached the little nest he’d made.

“Hey?”

Hawkeye looked up.

Trapper was standing over him, their dinner lovingly presented on their best serving plate, the sprig of holly perched neatly on top. The look on his face was almost pathetic.

Hawkeye blinked at him curiously. “Is this some sort of peace offering?”

“It’s a ‘sorry I’m such a miserable jerk’ offering.”

Hawkeye’s gaze flickered to the holly, and then back up to Trapper. “As offerings go, it’s a pretty good judge of character.”

Trapper nodded. “ _Touché_.” He gave a meek, contrite smile. “An’ I just wanna say, I know why ya did all this, an’ even though I think it’s dumb, I think it’s real sweet of you.”

At last, Hawkeye nodded in the direction of the cushions opposite him. “Come on, you big lug. You’re letting the Christmas meatloaf get cold.”

Nothing more was said. Trapper sank onto the cushions and placed their meal on the table. The tangled mess of emotions that had been festering in his gut all day, prompting him to snap at Hawkeye as he had done, was still far beyond his capability to unravel. And, until he could put it all neatly into words, that would have to do. Much remained unsaid, and the smile he gave Hawkeye felt slightly forced. “So uh…. are you carving this… turducken roast or whatever you said it was?”

Hawkeye laughed, and brandished his carving knife with a smile. “What do you want? Spleen or eyeball?”

 

* * *

 

The three bird roast went down beautifully, as did the wine. The second bottle was now well on the way to joining it. A more relaxed Trapper now lounged beside a happier Hawkeye as they polished off a not-so-traditional dessert of supermarket-brand ice cream. Nicely drunk and full of sugar, Trapper watched as Hawkeye gingerly tossed another log into the fire, flinching as the embers sparked and flew.

“Alright,” Trapper announced gleefully, pouring the last of the wine into his glass. “Favourite Christmas memory. Go.”

Hawkeye flopped back onto the cushions. “Oh, now you’re asking! I’m not so sure I can narrow it down to one!” Hawkeye picked up his glass and stared thoughtfully into the contents. He snorted. “Not the one we spent in Korea, that’s for sure.”

Trapper made a face and pressed a hand to his chest as if wounded. “Aw, our first Christmas together! An’ I thought it was somethin’ special…”

Hawkeye gulped some wine and gave a satisfied sigh. “We weren’t together then. It doesn’t count. I was still _pining_ for you, all lovelorn and unrequited.”

Trapper laughed. “Lovelorn my ass! You were datin’ Nurse Anderson _and_ Nurse Bannerman that winter!”

A look of surprise flickered across Hawkeye’s face – he had no idea Trapper had even noticed – followed quickly by a lecherous smile. “ _Ah_ yes, Becky and Barbara! You know, maybe Korea _was_ my favourite Christmas!”

“It better not be!” Trapper growled into his wine glass, but his eyes twinkled with playful glee. “I ain’t about to compete with two nurses! Not unless it’s mud-wrestlin’!”

“Jealous?”

“A little.” Trapper smirked and quirked an eyebrow. “Lieutenant Anderson was somethin’ else!”

Hawkeye snorted and shot him a dirty look. “Yeah, but Bannerman was a demon in the bedroom!”

“I remember.”

“Wait… _what_? _You_ screwed Bannerman?”

“No, but _you_ did! In _our_ shared quarters! Remember? I was in the next cot over, less than four feet away – you figured I was sleepin’!”

“Oh, yeah…” Hawkeye gave a wistful smile.

“That was some radio show. I had a hard-on for nearly half an hour…”

Hawkeye cackled with laughter, rolling around in the cushions.

Trapper settled down beside him, stretched out across the floor, trying not to think on how peculiar their intertwined histories were. “Come on, spill.”

Sitting back up again and gnawing thoughtfully on a thumbnail, Hawkeye thought on it. “Favourite Christmas memory… let me see.” He thought, and Trapper continued to knock his drink back. “Okay, I’ve got it. But… this might sound kind of nuts at first.”

Trapper snorted with laughter again. “You? Nuts? Benjamin Franklin Pierce? The man who walked into a crowded mess tent stark naked for a bet? The man who ordered takeout halfway around the world from some place in Chicago he didn’t even have the number for? The man who puts up with yours-truly on a daily basis for no fee save what I can give you in kisses?”

“Who said there was no fee? I’m mailing you the check just as soon as you leave!”

Another laugh. “Tell the story Hawk.”

“Okay. Well… I guess it’s not really the _best_ memory, but… it was the first Christmas after my mom died.”

Trapper looked at him curiously. “Go on…”

Hawkeye took a deep breath, exhaling it in a long sigh. Staring, misty-eyed, into the fireplace, he began: “It was such a strange holiday. I hadn’t really expected anything. The house had just felt miserable since Mom passed away. My birthday came and went, and dad… _forgot_. I was eleven years old, and I think I honestly thought that we would just… _stop_ doing Christmas now Mom wasn’t around. She was always the life and soul of the party, and dad was… well, you know how he is. She’d decorate the house and dress the tree, and then, every Christmas morning I’d wake up and there’d be a stocking full of presents at the foot of my bed. I’d grab ‘em all, and run through to my parents’ room, burrow down in the bed between them, and sit and unwrap every one before the sun was even up!”

Trapper chuckled, but couldn’t help but feel a little envious. As a child, his meagre stash of gifts had remained under the tree until after the festive ritual of dinner and the trip to church had been completed. The McIntyres were a sedate, formal kind of family, a far cry from the joyous chaos that seemed to govern the Pierce household.

Hawkeye continued: “After we lost Mom, there was nobody to do all those things. Dad was working, my aunts all had their own families, so it was just us.” As he spoke, Hawkeye hugged his knees to his chest, transforming almost physically into the little boy whose life he was describing. “I remember he brought this tree in from the woods, but it sat in the porch all week before he found the time to pot it and stand it up in the living room. And then it just… _sat_ there. We had this _naked_ tree in the window for days! It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. I used to sit and stare at it every morning while I ate my oatmeal, wondering who was going to dress it now Mom was gone. Then I got out of school on the last day, and I climbed up into the attic and I got the boxes down myself. And I _covered_ that tree in lights and baubles and garlands, _everything_ we owned, it all went up.”

Trapper beamed at the thought of little Hawkeye, determinedly decorating his tree. “That sounds neat.”

Hawkeye chuckled. “It wasn’t. I was too short to reach the top, and I didn’t think to do the back at all. It looked terrible, and I don’t think dad even noticed it until…” Another laugh, and a sweet, impish grin. “Christmas Eve, we were having dinner, and there was this _crash_ in the living room… and there it was: our Christmas tree, lying on its side across the coffee table. Pine needles everywhere, broken glass – and some of those baubles were heirlooms. He was mad – you don’t see my dad get mad, but he was mad. I tried to help, picking my way through the debris, but my dad wouldn’t have it. ‘Get upstairs!’ he told me. ‘Get upstairs and go to bed!’ That morning, I woke up… and there was no stocking at the foot of my bed. No presents. No tree because I’d ruined it, and no dad calling me through, because he was still angry.” He toyed with his empty glass, his brow creased, eyes downcast. “I thought… that was it. No more Christmas. Christmas must be something moms took care of, and since I didn’t have one any more, that was it for me.”

“Christ, Hawk…”

“So I didn’t go running through into dad’s room. I just lay there. I lay there and cried and I missed Mom like crazy.” A glimmer of a smile crossed his face, and his tone changed. “Then, my dad came in. And _he_ looked like he’d been crying – and if there’s anything my dad does even _less_ than getting mad, it’s crying – and that was when I realised… just how hard this had been for him. That it wasn’t just about the time or the money: it was that taking over from Mom meant facing the fact that she’d really _gone_ , you know? And I don’t think he could face that. But… he had this bag with him – this little canvas thing they sold at the craft store – and he sat on my bed, like he wasn’t sure what to say. He was never good at apologies, and in the end he just… started handing me these gifts. It wasn’t much, to tell you the truth. But… he’d tried.” Hawkeye’s eyes glistened as he told the story. “And you could _see_ in his face how sorry he was that he hadn’t been able to make Christmas the same as it used to be, but… how _could_ he, you know? The money wasn’t there, he had to work, and he was still mourning his wife. Mom was gone, and decorating the tree and hanging tinsel from the rafters wasn’t about to bring her back.”

Gently, Trapper reached out and placed a hand on Hawkeye’s arm.

“That Christmas wasn’t the greatest, but, I guess it’s one of my favourites. It meant the _world_ to me that, in the middle of everything he was going through, my dad had gone out and tried to make the best of it. But the last present… that was what did it.”

“What was it?”

Hawkeye grinned. “Mom had this tradition,” he explained, “after my baby sister died. Every Christmas, I’d get this little handmade thing in my stocking – knitted, like a doll or a bear or a scarf or something – and Mom _always_ labelled it from her. For a couple of years I genuinely thought Heaven ran a postal service, shipping out arts and crafts from dead relatives. Of course, eventually I’d figured out my mom was the one making them, but… it was just this thing we did.” He gestured animatedly, feeling a little foolish. But Trapper just smiled, and Hawkeye went on: “So, at the bottom of the bag, there was… this _thing_. I _think_ it was a glove, but I figured its father was a mitten, because it had to be some sort of hybrid. My mother must have started it, and then my father – who could barely knit a stitch – had finished it off.” He giggled at the memory, wiping his eyes on the back of his wrist even as he shook with laughter. “It was the _lousiest_ thing I’d ever seen! Stiches dropped all over the place, loose threads hanging off it, and I think it was missing a finger. But it was perfect. And at that moment, I had never felt so grateful to my dad before. Maybe we’re not the best at talking about the important things, but God knows he _tries_. And that… sorry little glove summed up our family so well on that day: Mom was gone, and nothing we could do would ever fill that hole she left. We were an incomplete, broken, messy little family, trying our best to carry on without her. We would drop our stitches and leave our threads dangling, and she wouldn’t be there any more to fix it, but, somehow, we would carry on – imperfect in our own unique way. And we would survive.”

Trapper swallowed hard, blinking back tears. “Wow,” he managed to utter, choking up. “C’mere.” With shaking hands, he gestured to Hawkeye to move closer, and wrapped him in his arms, holding him tightly. Hawkeye’s head found its usual resting place against his shoulder.

“What about you?” Hawkeye asked, his toes nudging the coffee table a little further away to make room for his long, gangly legs to sprawl. “What’s your best Christmas memory?”

Thinking on it, Trapper fell silent, and paused to remove a shred of turducken from his teeth and take another swig of wine. He wanted desperately to be able to tell Hawkeye that it was one they had spent together, but… their seasonal celebrations had never been great. Either plagued by the perils of war in Korea or poverty and isolation in Boston. They’d spent last Christmas homeless, sleeping in the car, and before that shivering a rented room with no heat. One year they had attempted to drive to Maine to visit Hawkeye’s father, but a random stop by a bored police officer had ended badly when Hawkeye’s mouth ran away with him. They had arrived in Maine bereft of their cash reserves, and with Trapper nursing a broken arm…

Christmas in the Pierce-McIntyre household had slowly become an occasion to be dreaded rather than celebrated. Every year, there were expenses they couldn’t afford, trips they couldn’t face, risks they weren’t prepared to take. And every year, Trapper had saved and saved to afford decent gifts for his girls, but every year his efforts were met with ill-concealed disappointment. He couldn’t compete with the elaborate toys and fashionable clothes that were flooding in from Louise’s side of the family and her new, wealthy second husband…

He pushed those thoughts back, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I think,” he said at last, his fingers toying with the stem of his glass, “the first Christmas after Kathy was born.”

He paused, pretending not to see the way Hawkeye flinched almost imperceptibly at the mere mention of Trapper’s daughters, the way his lips tightened, his mouth drawn into a thin line as he ducked his head and stared at the carpet as if ashamed.

Coasting through the awkwardness, Trapper sighed, and set his glass down. “December, 1946. I was up to my eyeballs in my residency, workin’ crazy hours, pay was lousy, ‘specially when there’s two kids to feed. Louise wanted to get these family portraits done in this fancy department store where all her friends shopped. They print ‘em up an’ you send ‘em out as Christmas cards.”

“Sounds nauseating.” Hawkeye snorted and poured himself a fresh glass, relaxing a little once again and trying to lighten the tone with some humour. He didn’t _get_ city people, sometimes. When he was a kid, he used to _make_ the Pierce family Christmas cards, perched at the kitchen table all weekend becoming more and more coated in pine needles and glitter.

“Yeah, it kinda was,” Trapper admitted with a smirk. “They had this mock livin’ room made up in the store, with a tree an’ everythin’, an you stood in front of it, pretendin’ it was your house – like everybody in Boston had the same wallpaper or somethin’! But it was what _Louise_ wanted, so…” He picked up his glass and gestured with it, before holding it out for a refill. Hawkeye obliged him. “Anyway, I was workin’ right up until Christmas, an’ time’s runnin’ out to get these pictures done. I got Louise mouthin’ off at me to get my ass to the department store, I got my boss pushin’ me to work overtime, an’ there’s a screamin’ baby an’ a pissed off toddler in the house! Life was _crazy_!”

“I bet!” Hawkeye poured the wine, draining the bottle.

“So, I finally get to leave the hospital a little early. I go to meet Louise an’ the girls at the store, an’ it’s the _last day_ they’re doin’ these pictures! It’s snowin’ out, and the Christmas shoppers are everywhere!”

“Those pesky Christmas shoppers! Why can’t they wait until springtime when the weather’s better?”

“I couldn’t find a parkin’ space, _then_ I couldn’t find the store, an’ when I _finally_ got there…” His voice shook with laughter, and he leaned back against the couch, grinning broadly. “Louise was standin’ in the snow, wearin’ this dress she’d been savin’ for best, an’ her best heels, an’ both the girls done up in their prettiest dresses. An’ they’d been there for forty minutes waitin’ for me! Kathy was screamin’, Becky was turnin’ blue an’ pullin’ the ribbons outta her hair, an’ Louise is _filthy_ from haulin’ the girls through the snow! An’ she’s waggin’ her finger at me, remindin’ me more an’ more of my mother...”

“Oh, _there’s_ Freudian!”

“So, the store’s gonna close in twenty minutes, right? An’ we go runnin’ through the place, two pissed off kids in tow, an’ we find this photo place she’s been yammerin’ on about. The guy’s packin’ up already, but Louise _begs_ him to do our picture. An’ he looks at us – me still in my work gear, her with her dirty shoes, an’ two red-faced little girls hangin’ off us, screamin’ to go home already – an’ I think he takes _pity_ on us or somethin’. So he picks his camera back up, an’ he says, ‘ _Okay. Are_ _you ready_?’ An’ I just _laugh._ We’ve never been less ready in our lives! Becky’s tryin’a do her own pigtails, wipin’ snot on the back of her sleeve, an Kathy’s bawlin’ her head off an turnin’ purple, an’ I just can’t stop _laughin’_! Louise looks at me like she’s about to skin me alive! An’ _then_ , right then, that… cheeky son of a bitch _takes the picture_! The flash goes off, the camera clicks, an’ bold as brass, he holds out his hand an’ says, ‘ _Two dollars please_.’”

Hawkeye cackled, rocking back on his cushions, nearly spilling his wine.

“I swear to God, Hawk, it was the best family picture we ever had! Kathy’s howlin’, her little face all twisted up like a cartoon; Becky’s sulky as hell because she’s managed to get one pigtail halfway up her head an’ the other fallin’ out, an’ her nose is runnin’; I’m still wearin’ my doctor’s coat with my tie slung halfway down my chest; an’ Louise is covered in the finest Boston slush and glarin’ up at me like she wants me to drop dead. It was _beautiful_. We got the picture through in the mail, she never sent out a single card, an’ I kept the original in a frame in my office. Without exception, best Christmas portrait ever.”

Hawkeye smiled warmly. “Trapper, that sounds _fantastic_.”

“I’ve still got it.” Trapper thumbed in the direction of the bedroom. “It’s the most ridiculous thing we ever did, an’ I _love_ it. Because… that was _us_ , you know. We were this young family, tryin’a make our lives work around my job an’ two babies! Okay, it wasn’t the picture-perfect family Louise wanted to show her friends, but it was _honest_. An’ it showed just how hard it was to keep things together when we were dealin’ with all that! But _we did it_.”

Hawkeye squeezed his arm, his earlier unease gone as a warm, affectionate glow. “I’m sure you did an amazing job.”

Trapper tilted his gaze to his glass, staring into the liquid as he swirled it gently in his hand. “We weren’t half bad. We were better parents than we were partners, I’ll give her that. I think the girls were what kept us going. Sometimes I think…” He paused, unsure if he should share his next thought. “I think,” he admitted at last, “if things had been different, we probably would’a had another baby once I got back from Korea just to try an’ hold things together. Is that an awful thing to do, d’ya think?”

Stretching out on the cushions beside him, Hawkeye shrugged. “I’m not in any position to judge.” He leaned closer, resting his head gently on Trapper’s arm.

“Hmm. I s’pose not. God, I love kids though! Watchin’ ‘em grow, seein’ the way they look atcha…”

Hawkeye heard Trapper’s voice crack. Then he heard the sniffle, and the shuddering sigh as he swallowed his words. He turned over, gently wrapping an arm around him as he watched the emotion flicker across his face. “You know,” he tried gently, “you can _talk_ about…”

But Trapper shook his head. Whatever further thoughts he had, he was keeping to himself.

Hawkeye dropped the subject. He squeezed him tighter, neither one saying a word.

They sat like that for a while, only just noticing that the sky outside their windows had already darkened to night, and that the only light bathing them was the orange glow of the fire.

“Hey. I got you a little something, you know.”

Trapper lifted head. “You did?”

Hawkeye nodded, his hair brushing Trapper’s face and tickling his nose. He sat, turning away and rummaging under the couch for a moment. He returned, clutching a small box.

It was wrapped and adorned with a ribbon just like the gift wrapping in a department store, but it took little more than a glance to recognise that Hawkeye had done this himself. The wrapping paper was the same stuff they had used these past two years, and the ribbon was off a gift Hawkeye’s father had sent for his birthday. Trapper could vividly remember him tugging at the blue satin and struggling with the knot. Now, those same fingers held out a gift to him, much smaller than the one Daniel had sent, but no less appreciated.

He set his wine down and took the proffered gift.

The box was square and flat, about the size of Trapper’s hand with all fingers spread. He held it, eyeing it curiously. “You really didn’t have to, you know.”

“Um, well…” Hawkeye gestured with a fluttering of hands, evidently a little embarrassed. “Technically I _didn’t_ really, but… you’ll see when you open it.”

Trapper’s brow furrowed curiously.

“Go on! Open it!”

Trapper did so, pulling at the bow on top. The ribbon came undone, and the top loosened. Lifting it away, Trapper was raised his eyebrows at the contents: His own wallet sat nestled on paper tissues, as battered and creased as ever. He lifted it out, shooting Hawkeye a curious look. “Lemme guess? You slipped me back that ten bucks you owe me for my birthday present?”

“Uh… no, actually. But I _will_ give you that back!”

“Uh-huh…” Trapper shot him a cheeky, dubious smile.

“Open the wallet, Trap.”

Trapper did so. And as he did, his breath caught in his throat. “Oh, Hawk…”

Two photographs nestled together, side by side, in two of the ID compartments, framed in brown leather. One was a copy of Kathy and Becky’s first school picture together – two chubby-cheeked little school girls smiling side by side over a pair of textbooks; the second, the snapshot Trapper had taken of Hawkeye on the beach in Lincoln the summer before last. It was almost too much for his heart to take.

“So you can carry us around with you. It’s not much, but…”

“I love it.” Trapper cut him off. If Hawkeye said another word, Trapper knew he would cry. He didn’t want to cry. Christmas shouldn’t be a time for tears, and he’d fought so hard to keep it together these past few weeks. Instead, he set the wallet aside and gathered Hawkeye in his arms, kissing him.

They were both drunk, and the kisses were sloppy. Trapper’s lips caught on Hawkeye’s day-old stubble. Eventually, he found his mouth, and kissed him. And again. And again.

And just like that, as if he’d hit a switch, Hawkeye was _on._ Stretching languidly in Trapper’s arms, he inhaled, deepening the kiss, as if Trapper were breathing life into him. Perhaps he was. Hawkeye thrived on intimacy – the simple things like playful, unexpected kisses in the afternoon and cuddling up in bed together after a long day – and these past few weeks, with Trapper so distant and untouchable, had been sheer hell. Now, he felt alive again! His hands rose to Trapper’s hair, fingers fanning through familiar curls, thumbs coming to rest against his cheekbones, learning the feel of his face all over again.

He drew closer, pulling himself off the cushions and onto Trapper’s lap, breaking the kiss only when a sudden sharp movement accidentally knocked their front teeth together.

“Ow!”

“Ow!”

Hawkeye giggled and Trapper grinned. “Lemme kiss that better for ya…”

He did, and Hawkeye’s whole body undulated in his arms, his knees sinking deeper into the cushions, his slender ribcage pressing tighter against Trapper’s chest. Trapper could feel every movement, every breath, even every heartbeat as his pulse quickened with excitement. He needed more. With swift but measured movements, his hands mapped the familiar territory of Hawkeye’s body, diving under the tuxedo jacket to tug loose his shirt and touch the skin beneath, as if exploring its contours, learning them anew. His thumbs traced gently across all-too-prominent ribs, his fingers coming to rest in the shallow furrows between. He followed their curvature, up and around to his bony spine, drawing a long moan from Hawkeye as the rough pads of his fingers brushed across sensitive skin. Hawkeye arched, and Trapper grinned.

“Gotta love that sensitive back o’ yours.”

He repeated the motion, this time with nails. And this time, Hawkeye moaned.

The sound seemed to awake something bestial in Trapper’s heart, and sensuality turned to raging carnality. His lips found Hawkeye’s throat, his teeth nipping at skin, and his hands roamed lower, cupping his ass, pulling him close. His hips rose from the cushions beneath him, pressing up against his lover, his arousal unmistakeable.

Hawkeye’s gaze met his, and Trapper growled: “Go get the stuff.”

Hawkeye laughed, looked away, then unfolded his gangly body from Trapper’s lap. “Oh, well, when you put it so _romantically_ …” With a dramatic toss of his head, he swaggered off to the bathroom.

Trapper didn’t waste any time. With as much co-ordination as could be expected from one as intoxicated as he, he shimmied out of his clothes, discarding them to the floor, and then arranged his naked self in what he hoped was a visually pleasing pose, reclining against the couch. His eyes fell closed for a moment and he drifted in a gentle haze of drink, until…

“My, my! You know, I get the feeling I came to this party overdressed!”

Trapper opened his eyes again. Hawkeye was standing over him, still in his (albeit dishevelled) tux. Trapper shot him a drunken smile. “Well, you know what to do about _that_!”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Tossing the lubricant onto the couch, Hawkeye shrugged off his jacket and began tugging at his bow tie. It was the fastest strip tease in history, and took all of about fifteen seconds, half of which were spend hopping up and down on the cushions trying to take his socks off. Naked at last, he plopped himself down beside Trapper, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

“Very seductive,” Trapper teased, shooting him one of his patented lop-sided grins.

Hawkeye’s heart melted. “Well, you know, I try.” Leaning close, he kissed Trapper gently on the lips. And then again – harder. Bodies pressed together, skin meeting skin, and Hawkeye murmured against Trapper’s lips. “Missed this…”

“Yeah?”

Hawkeye slipped a hand between them, giving Trapper a firm but pleasurable squeeze. “Missed this, too.”

Trapper chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated against Hawkeye’s body. “You did, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah I did.” His voice was warm, his smile broad, but there was a hint of melancholy in Hawkeye’s voice, and he cuddled closer, his head ducking into the nook of Trapper’s shoulder to kiss his collarbone.

Somewhere in between the intimacy and the arousal, Trapper felt a stab of guilt. He knew he _hadn’t_ been particularly… available these past few weeks. Not sexually, not affectionately, not even emotionally, and he knew Hawkeye must have felt that deprivation keenly. Trapper reached out and cupped his chin, lifting his face up. Watery blue eyes met his own. “Lemme make it up to ya?”

He knew the response would be a resounding yes, and so, without hesitation, he took Hawkeye’s slender body in his arms, rolling him onto the cushions. Hawkeye landed on his back with a loud “oof!” and a slightly startled expression, but shock turned to delight as Trapper carefully laid himself over him, and began kissing every inch of skin he could find. He started at his throat, where the skin was softest, in between the rough stubble of his chin and the sparse black hair that peppered his sternum. He inched across the expanse of his chest from clavicle to abdomen, watching and feeling the expansion of his ribcage with every breath, noting how each one came closer and closer together, how his heart was pounding so hard Trapper could feel the thrum of it. He glanced up. Hawkeye was watching him as he moved lower, lips parted, eyes half lidded, his body tensed in anticipation.

Trapper swallowed, and wetted his lips. This wasn’t something he normally liked to do, but the drink, and the sense that he owed Hawkeye _something_ for the weeks of misery he’d subjected him to, spurred him on.

The first contact made Hawkeye gasp, and his body rise from the cushions. Trapper’s hands immediately grasped his hips to push him back and hold him steady. Hawkeye whimpered, gazing down at Trapper liked he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing – or feeling. He had to admit, Trapper’s enthusiasm was somewhat lacking, and his technique non-existent, but Hawkeye couldn’t bring himself to care too much. His hands grasped at the cushions. He wanted to grasp Trapper’s hair, guide him to the perfect rhythm, show him just how he liked it, but he knew better than to try such a thing. The slightest disturbance might break the spell.

All too soon, Trapper pulled away. Hawkeye’s body sagged with disappointment rather than satisfaction, but he swallowed his objections behind a tight-lipped smile, and Trapper, with all the smugness of a man with a job well done, settled beside him once more. “I figured I owed ya a Christmas present.” He picked his wine glass up from the coffee table and took a long, slow sip.

Hawkeye stared at him, his eyebrows elevating towards his hairline. He’d never known that thirty seconds of mediocre oral sex constituted a gift. He wished someone had told him sooner – he could have saved over a hundred bucks in the past six years!

Unable to stop himself, he laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Hawkeye fell silent. He saw Trapper’s face fall, and, with some bemusement, realised, as far as Trapper was concerned, he really _had_ done something extra special! And so, Hawkeye decided not to comment; figured he ought to just be grateful for the rare treat and keep quiet. Not one to look a Christmas gift blow job in the mouth, he smiled. “So, seeing as we’re exchanging gifts, do you want me to… uh…?” He licked his lips and glanced south. “… _do_ you too?”

Trapper drained his glass and set it down once more. “Nah.” His expression darkened, and his hands returned to Hawkeye’s body, fingers trailing up his flank, full of promise. A moment later and he was on him, pinning him to the cushions. The weight of him forced the breath from Hawkeye’s lungs, making him grunt from the pressure, his legs parting on instinct to grasp around Trapper’s waist, holding him close. “You _know_ what I want.” He rolled his hips, and Hawkeye moaned softly in response, his eyelids fluttering closed, his body pushing back, seeking more sensation.

“Trapper…?”

Just as suddenly, Trapper pulled away, reached over to the couch, and a tube of KY landed on Hawkeye’s belly.

It was a familiar non-verbal command, and Hawkeye was well acquainted with it by now. He didn’t hesitate – although he did fumble the cap in his inebriated state – but he didn’t rush the job either: With well-practised ease, he not only made his preparations but put on a _show_ , and Trapper, his ever-appreciative audience, lapped up every moment, eyes dark with desire, his lower lip clenched between his teeth while the upper seemed to curl into an animalistic snarl. He hovered between Hawkeye’s legs, one hand propping up his thigh, watching with fascination as Hawkeye touched himself, his hands aching to aid him but never quite able to. “You’re _obscene_.”

Hawkeye chuckled. “Oh, _I’m_ obscene? You’re the one watching…”

Trapper’s response – almost one of anger at the suggestion – was to grab his wrist and pull his hand away. Hawkeye whined. “Hey, I was _enjoying_ that!”

Panting, Trapper grasped his legs, pushing his thighs up and apart until he was bent double. He shot him a wicked, salacious grin. “Oh yeah? You’ll like this, too…”

He pushed forward. Hawkeye’s eyes immediately screwed closed, his body arching off the cushions, his head flung back. The sight took Trapper’s breath away just as much as the sensation. There was something he could never quite get over about these first few seconds of lovemaking – a disbelief he couldn’t shake. Maybe that Hawkeye _allowed_ him to take him in this way, or that he _enjoyed_ it so much, or even that he was doing it at all. But that moment of penetration when Hawkeye would arch, or hiss, or moan, or push back against him to make the sensation more intense was always the most profound, surreal feeling.

He began to draw back, half lost in sensation, and Hawkeye made a desperate keening sound, snapping Trapper’s attention back to the moment like elastic.

Trapper smiled. “You like that, huh?” It was a rhetorical question. He gave his hips a roll, and got another moan in return. Smirking, he leaned down, covering Hawkeye’s body with his own. Hawkeye’s arms closed around him, his fingers delving into his hair, palm cradling the back of his neck. As he settled into a rhythm, Trapper leaned in close, his lips finding the soft skin of Hawkeye’s temple, lost in a hazy cocktail of booze and erotic pleasure. “Christ, Hawk…”

Hawkeye wiggled beneath him. “Uh… Trapper?”

Trapper sighed and nuzzled him affectionately. “What is it?”

“A little help here?”

“Huh?” Trapper pushed himself up and looked at him, puzzled for a moment. “Oh yeah… um, sorry.” He leaned to the side, rose onto his knees a little, and slipped a hand between them to give Hawkeye a helping hand, so to speak. The new position was awkward, the pressure on his shoulder uncomfortable, but Hawkeye sighed with appreciation. His fingers wrapped around Trapper’s forearm, urging him on.

But he was to be disappointed. Trapper’s shoulder pain cranked up a notch, and, wincing, he sat back on his haunches, prompting a whine of impassioned objection from Hawkeye. “Why’d you _stop_?”

“This ain’t workin’. It’s easier if you do it. An’ turn over, huh? I’m leanin’ over so far sideways I feel like I’m tryin’a make love on the deck o’ the Titanic.”

“Imagine that! You could wind up going down twice in one day…” Hawkeye complied, and Trapper eagerly scrambled back into position – a little _too_ eagerly. Hawkeye yelped. “Take it easy back there, careful with the merchandise.”

“Sorry.” Trapper’s hands came to rest on Hawkeye’s hips, and, a little gentler than he had been a moment ago, he found his rhythm. Below him, Hawkeye fell into his own, sparing him the effort. “ _Oh_ , that’s better…” Trapper purred. His hand slid along Hawkeye’s spine, eliciting a pleasurable shudder. “This good for you?”

Hawkeye went non-verbal, but the satisfied murmur at the sensation said it all.

A short while later, and he was doing more than murmuring. It had to be said, Hawkeye’s mid-coitus vocalising was really something impressive. It was also Trapper had never quite gotten used to, never quite felt _comfortable_ with, but on this occasion it was more arousing than distracting. Maybe it was the booze that relaxed him, took the edge off his paranoia, but tonight, Hawkeye’s uninhibited moaning only added to Trapper’s excitement, and, as Hawkeye howled his pleasure into the upholstery, he followed him over the precipice within a few seconds.

Hawkeye slumped onto the cushions, spent, lying face down with his eyes half closed. Beside him, Trapper reclined, panting slightly. “That was great, Hawk.” He slapped Hawkeye’s backside playfully.

Stirring, Hawkeye lifted his head a little. “Hey, no kinky stuff, or I’ll have to charge you extra.”

Trapper chuckled, and Hawkeye slung and arm around him for a post-coital cuddle. But Trapper pulled away, clambering to his feet.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Hawkeye’s speech was sleepy and slurred.

“To get cleaned up.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Come back, gimme some snuggle time.” He held out a hand in Trapper’s direction.

Trapper hesitated, unsure how to respond to this request. He was spared, mercifully, by Hawkeye’s exhaustion, as the proffered hand soon dropped limply onto the cushions, and he began to snore gently. Trapper breathed a sigh of relief, grasped the throw from the nearby couch and draped it carefully over Hawkeye’s naked form. This done, he wasted no time in taking himself off to the bathroom for a long, hot shower. It was some time before he would emerge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye's flashback is an omitted scene from my fic 'Stitches in Time' which deals with the death of Hawkeye's mother and baby sister.


	2. TWO...

** April, 1958 **

Trapper’s hands clenched and unclenched around edge of his jacket, his palms sweaty, his nails bitten to the quick. All around him, the shipping office bustled with activity as factory workers in brown workman’s coats wheeled trolley-loads of neatly rolled material across the concrete floor, axles squeaking as they went. Trapper, and the handful of other hopeful applicants sat in the office that day, were largely ignored.

Another name was called, and a man rose from the bench opposite Trapper, and shuffled off in the direction of the manager’s office. Trapper sized up the competition. The guy was old. That meant experience, but possibly physical frailty. It meant no kids to support, which mean he might be able to accept a lower salary, while Trapper was still being bled dry by Louise’s lawyers, who were determined that no contact should, under no circumstances, mean no child support payments.

And Trapper had been out of work for five months. Now, with the bills mounting up, here he was, literally biting his nails over a job as a _janitor_.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but somehow he’d managed it, along with his pride.

As another worker shunted another trolley load of fabric rolls past, Trapper desperately sought distraction from the agonising wait. Turning away from the chaos, he turned sideways on the bench to pore over his application again. The form he had been handed upon enquiry had been created neatly and concisely on a typewriter, and Trapper had subsequently sullied it with his typical doctor’s scrawl. He had tried to keep his answers as tidy as possible, but writing hastily and with a shaking hand did not render this an easy task, and Trapper’s writing had wandered outside the lines of the little boxes provided.

He knew it didn’t matter. He knew it was meaningless. And yet, as he scanned his scribbled notes he still found himself breaking into a sweat. Well… it was either that or screw it into a ball and walk away, unable to face the humiliation. Focusing on the minutiae helped to keep him from storming out in a rage.

“Mr McIntyre?”

The change of his name was another kick in the teeth that made him wince every time he heard it. Hawkeye had been the first of them to snag a job by dropping his title and leaving his medical diploma off his application, and Trapper had long since followed suit.

Now, he got shakily to his feet and made his way towards the office, janitorial application in his hand, and another, even less pleasant document stuffed in the pocket of his fraying jacket.

But he was waiting until they asked for that. No need to present his discharge papers unless he had to…

The office was pokey, and stiflingly warm, heated by the activity of the machines on the other side of one wall and the shafts of sunlight that pierced their way through the grimy window in the other, catching on the thousands upon thousands of tiny fibres that wafted through the air like a dense fog.

Mrs Ferrelli, one half of the husband-and-wife team who owned this particular company, sat on the other side of a large desk. She had on a perfectly pressed dress, hand-made, no doubt, out of perfectly printed floral cotton in a rich burnt orange and cornflower blue, topped with perfectly coiffed chocolate-brown hair. If it wasn’t for the cat-eye glasses, over which she looked at him, she would have reminded him almost painfully of Louise.

That was, until she smiled. Her smile was warm and joyous, as was her handshake, during which Trapper noticed with some surprise that she kept her nails short. A working woman. A working _married_ woman. This could bode well…

“I hope you don’t mind my keepin’ you waitin’,” his erstwhile employer gushed, hurrying to return to her seat and gesturing to Trapper to take his. “We just had somethin’ of a rush on, an’ I had to just try an’ squeeze you in when I could. Now, if I could just…”

Trapper handed her his application and sank gratefully onto the chair facing her, elbows resting on knees, his hands clasped in front of him. As she studied his form, he studied _her_. Trapper liked to get an angle on his potential employers, so he knew how to play them. She was younger than he had expected, and uncommonly cheery, and her hands and rolled-up sleeves suggested she respected hard work and manual labour and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. Her accent was working-class Boston, much like his own, and Trapper prayed she would warm to him.

“Okay,” she mused aloud, “let’s see. John Xavier McIntyre – _Xavier_ , huh? – oh, local address I see, date of birth…” She paused, looked up, and smiled warmly. “Many happy returns!”

Trapper actually recoiled in surprise at the sentiment – he had genuinely _forgotten_! “Uh… thanks!”

It was his birthday! And then, he was lost for a half a minute or so, all thoughts of employment sent scarpering in the wake of ‘ _Holy hell, I’m forty_!’ followed quickly, and rather depressingly by ‘ _And what do I have to show for it_?’

“Any children?”

Tugged back to reality with a bump, Trapper startled a little. It was question that also tugged at his heartstrings, and it was all he could do to try and answer around the lump in his throat. Thoughts of his children never failed to hurt, and there seemed little he could do to keep the wave of regret at bay. “Two.” He answered without thinking too much. Normally he had a strict plan of what to disclose! He hadn’t even decided yet! This whole interview was quite running away with him!

“I… noticed the wedding band,” Mrs Ferrelli explained with a smile, gesturing to Trapper’s hand.

Trapper smiled back, gave a nervous laugh, and fiddled anxiously with said wedding band, his hand going to cover it, as if its very existence had the potential to give away the identity of who exactly had given it to him. ‘ _Don’t be a moron, she don’t know_ ….’ “Yeah, uh… I figured it said in the paper that the job was for the early shift, so I figured it’d be a good way to… spend some more time with my kids. Y’know, get to see ‘em more in the afternoons, pick ‘em up from school.” It was almost too easy. Normally, he choked on every lie he uttered, but this one tripped off his tongue so naturally, and as much as he tried to tell himself he was just trying to appeal to the nice lady boss with a façade of good, old-fashioned family values, he knew it was more than that. There was an element of fantasy in his deception, and he couldn’t kid himself that there wasn’t.

The lie worked. Sure enough, Mrs Ferrelli smiled. “You know what, Mr McIntyre – I _like_ you.” She gave him a smile that was almost _cheeky_ , like she wasn’t supposed to be hiring based on gut instincts like this. “And it doesn’t seem right to turn a man away on his birthday,” she added.

Trapper gave a laugh, more out of relief than joy. “Oh, _thank_ you!” He rose and went to shake her hand. ‘ _Bless you, lady – you’re a real soft touch, an’ I love you for it_!’

“I’d just like to see your supportin’ paperwork – your reference and your discharge from your National Service.”

Trapper’s heart sank. ‘ _Oh well, that was nice while it lasted_ …’ He reached into his jacket pocket, wrapping around the well-worn copy of his army discharge, and the forged reference Hawkeye had typed up for him on headed notepaper swiped from a previous employer’s desk when nobody was looking. They had a system by now. References were easily forged; an honourable discharge was not.

And now, as she scanned the papers, Trapper didn’t even have to read the words. They were engraved into his soul already: ‘ _Undesirable discharge from the Armed Forces of the United States of America. This is to certify that Jonathan Francis Xavier McIntyre, AMEDD, was discharged from the United States Army on the 28 th day of September 1951 as undesirable_.’ He couldn’t look at her, but the little “oh” of surprise and disappointment sailed over from her desk as Trapper studied the carpet.

Her next question chilled him, and yet gave him a beacon of hope. “Dare I ask?”

Most people didn’t ask. They assumed, and they were usually right. Her query left him one card to play. It was a risky one – one he’d only recently stumbled across in his long campaign of attempting to outwit prospective employers – but he’d blagged it before, and sometimes it worked. And now, with nothing left to lose, Jonathan Xavier McIntyre, forty-year-old unemployed father of two, played his hand.

“Look, if it makes any difference… I’m in an AA group. I had a problem a few years back, but I’m on the wagon.”

He spoke with clarity, and with a well-rehearsed air of sincerity and just the right blend of pride and remorse. As he raised his head, he saw Mrs Ferrelli exhale with what appeared to be _relief_ , and her smile returned to her features. And he knew his final play had worked. He’d got the job.

As she shook his hand and thanked him for his application, telling him how much she admired his honesty, Trapper smiled back at her. But behind it all, he felt like he’d died a little inside.

* * *

Rather than head straight home, Trapper took a roundabout route. Their damp-infested attic apartment wasn’t far from the factory, but Trapper needed a stroll to clear his head. And so, he wandered the streets around the harbour, past warehouses and spit-and-sawdust drinking establishments, feeling painfully aware of both the hole in his shoe and his previously-forgotten birthday. As he paused outside a bar to readjust the wad of newspaper that served as a temporary barrier between his sock and the cold concrete, he had never felt closer to his roots. His father had worked here – or somewhere like this – for much of his life, until the slums near the harbour had been torn down, and they were pushed out to the sticks at the edge of town. Men like his father now clustered around the sidewalk before him, loitering around a working-class bar clutching their beers, bemoaning the lack of work. This was exactly the sort of life his father had been so desperate for him to avoid; why he had pushed him so hard in school; why he had shoved him towards medicine. Oh, if old Francis McIntyre were to see his only son now! Working as a lowly janitor in a textiles factory!

Men like Trapper were a source of both envy and ridicule to the dock workers, envied for their stable position (while the dockers themselves had to fight for a spot on each ship that came in) and ridiculed for their ‘easy’ jobs of mopping floors instead of hauling crates like ‘real’ men.

As he loitered there outside the bar, footsore and despondent, even with his hand wrapped around his much-needed hiring slip, Trapper felt for all the world as if he had his father’s disapproving gaze upon him. Here he was, a forty-year old janitor with no contact with his children, no use for his medical diploma, and no prospects. Not even in the kind of manual work his father would have respected him for, but in a ‘cissy’ job… something which felt almost _painfully_ apt. For some reason, on today of all days, it hit him harder than ever before. He knew he should be grateful that he’d managed to snag himself a job at all, but gratitude was the last thing he was feeling. Maybe it was the awful realisation of how _old_ he was? Maybe it was the pain of talking about his children as if they were still in his life? Maybe it was the ghost of his father looming large in his memory as he walked the streets of his childhood home…

‘ _Or maybe it’s because tellin’ the nice lady I’m a goddamn alcoholic is somehow_ better _than admittin’ I got kicked outta the army for bein’ a dirty queer._ ’

The thought ghosted through his mind with no warning, and it made him physically recoil, screwing his eyes closed and shaking his head violently as if from some sort of nervous tic or convulsion.

Suddenly, feeling painfully exposed, he turned away from the small crowd outside the bar, ducking into the alley between the brick buildings and burrowing deeper into his thin coat, trying to still his racing thoughts. He couldn’t get it out of his head! His father’s ghost, his damning record, the sweet, smiling face of the woman who had just hired him, thinking she was taking a chance on a reformed drinker with a family to support, when all the while he would be taking his paycheck home to his illicit, homosexual lover! It all swam before his eyes, an unstoppable tidal wave of guilty, dirty secrets, fogging his thoughts. His hands clenched at his sides, and he pressed his chin to his chest, eyes closed, heart racing. ‘ _Stop it, stop it, stop it_ …’

And then there was pain. It exploded across the back of his hand, a welcome distraction from the mental anguish, clear and sharp and bright against the mire of his darkening mood.

He opened his eyes.

His fist had made contact with the rough brickwork of the old drinking house. Holding his shaking hand before him, Trapper stared at the damage, strangely calm, as if the outburst of violence had soothed him somehow. Blood oozed a little from the abrasions on his knuckles, but a little flexing confirmed that there were no broken bones. He watched with almost hypnotic fascination as a bead of blood pooled in the furrow between his index and middle knuckles, before surrendering to gravity and rolling down the back of his hand dripping from his wrist to stain the off-white of his shirt cuff.

“Damn.”

His trance broken, Trapper whipped out his handkerchief and pressed it to his hand. What a _mess_ he was! He was trembling now, the pain setting in as the adrenaline faded, blood staining his handkerchief and his sleeve. He couldn’t go home like this. He couldn’t face Hawkeye while he was in this state.

With shaking hands, he tied the handkerchief around his wound, eyeing the bar with growing temptation. It would be nice, he had to admit, to disappear into a sea of nameless faces, and disappear for a while; just to be another working man among the crowd, rather than one half of a conspicuous, criminal, _undesirable_ couple attracting knowing, accusing looks on the stairs of their apartment building. He had enough for maybe two drinks, if the prices were good. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Just to take the edge off? Just to steady his nerves? Just to celebrate his birthday, _and_ his gainful employment.

‘ _Life imitates art_ …’ he thought to himself.

And, chuckling a little at the irony, newly-employed janitor Jonathan Xavier McIntyre, stepped into the bar, and off the wagon.

* * *

 

Trapper had tried to return home in silence, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but, by that same token, trying not to look as if he were sneaking in guiltily. The apartment was dark, and the blinds all drawn, which struck him as peculiar – he knew Hawkeye had nothing to get up for, but he rarely slept in this late. He carefully latched the door with little more than a gentle click, hung his coat up, and dropped his keys on the table with the softest of rattles.

The lights snapped on.

“ _Happy birth–_ ”

“ _Jesus,_ Hawkeye!” Trapper started, clutching his chest as a grinning Hawkeye emerged from the kitchenette clutching a huge – if rather sloppily iced – homemade chocolate cake.

Hawkeye paused for a moment, smirking all over his face as he gave Trapper a chance to catch his breath, before launching into an all-too-cheery rendition of ‘ _Happy birthday to you_ ’, at far too loud volume for Trapper’s aching head.

“Just a second, Marilyn!” Trapper held up a finger and Hawkeye’s singing trailed off. Pointedly, Trapper tapped his watch. “I got a newsflash for ya. For your information, my birth certificate says ‘time o’ birth: sixteen-oh-five’! So I ain’t forty ‘til gone four o’clock! Now, I suggest you put that cake back an’ let me enjoy bein’ thirty-nine for another couple more hours!”

Hawkeye gave a devious chuckle, gleefully ignoring Trapper’s request. “Happy fortieth–”

“Aw, Jeez!” Trapper hid his head in his hands.

“–birthday, congratulations, many happy returns and all that birthday jazz.” Hawkeye pecked Trapper on the cheek and laid the cake down triumphantly on the dining table. Sliding into a chair, he planted a candle in the top and struck a match with his thumbnail, lighting it deftly. “Make a wish, old timer, and stop trying to claw back your misspent youth!”

Rolling his eyes, Trapper leaned down to the candle. “I wish that Hawkeye weren’t such a pain in the ass.” He gave a sharp blow and the candle snuffed itself out…

… only to relight a second later.

Hawkeye’s cackling almost hurt Trapper’s ears. He laughed and rocked and slapped his thigh.

Trapper winced and rolled his eyes. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. Abandoning the cake, he stalked over to the refrigerator. “Would you lay off? I’m _forty_. I ain’t _twelve_.”

“Thought you said you were thirty-nine.” He shot Trapper a grin, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Oh… can it!”

Laughing again at Trapper’s irritation, Hawkeye set his cake down on the table so he could remove the gag candle and snuff it out. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t resist! Come on, it was _funny_!”

“Hilarious…”

“I thought you had a sense of humour! I at least expected you to try and blow it out a couple more times.”

Trapper made an obscene gesture. “Blow this.”

“Later, honey. I just ate.”

Giving a snort of a laugh, Trapper rummaged in the door of the refrigerator. “You want a beer?”

“No, I’m good.” Hawkeye set the candle aside and set about searching for a cake tin. “Hey, how did the interview go? I was waiting here on tenterhooks! I thought you’d be home hours ago.”

“Went great. As of today, you’re lookin’ at the new mornin’ shift janitor for Ferrelli’s Textiles and Upholstery.”

The delighted expression on Hawkeye’s face was really something of an exaggeration in Trapper’s eyes. “Trapper! That’s wonderful! That’s fantastic!”

Another snort. “Yeah. At least now _one_ of us is employed.” His gaze wandered over to their large yet mildew-infested apartment. They _really_ needed a new place. This apartment was getting damper by the day, and yet the rent was bleeding them dry. Plus the fact that the pair of them were sharing a one-bedroom loft was beginning to draw too much attention from the neighbours.

“That’s alright though!” Hawkeye gave an elaborate shrug. “We’re living the American dream, the nuclear family. You go earn money and I’ll stay home, clean our place, cook your dinners, and look after the children. I’ll even wear petticoats – with that little apron on top like…”

Trapper’s expression darkened, and Hawkeye trailed off, biting his lip.

“Sorry.” Any mention of children, even in jest, was a bad idea, and Hawkeye realised a few seconds too late, that he had opened his mouth only to insert his foot. “I didn’t mean… Okay, ignore me and my big mouth. Congratulations. I mean that. You, my dashing hero, have saved us both from starvation, eviction and from sleeping in the car again, and I’m grateful. Really.” Gently, he took Trapper’s arm and pulled him close.

Trapper went willingly, if not enthusiastically, and allowed Hawkeye to press a peck of a kiss to his lips. “Thanks, Hawk.”

The kiss was brief and chaste, like neither one of them was feeling it. When Hawkeye pulled away, his brow was burrowed. “You’ve been drinking?”

The comment was practically rhetorical, but the final syllable hung in the air with a questioning cadence, giving Trapper the opportunity to confirm or deny, although any attempt to deceive would doubtlessly be met with scorn. “I only had a couple.” He pulled away, and cracked open his beer on the edge of the kitchen table, leaving yet another serrated scar in the woodwork. The top fell to the floor with a rattle.

Hawkeye’s hand went to his arm again, tighter this time. “It’s barely a couple o’clock! Is _that_ where you’ve been? Sat in some bar all through lunch while I waited for you?” Hawkeye looked genuinely hurt, but Trapper merely gave a shrug.

“Hey! I was celebratin’! I got a job, remember! Besides…” He gave Hawkeye a charming smile. “It’s my _birthday_.”

Blessedly, Hawkeye dropped the subject, leaving Trapper to slip away, slumping onto the couch, exhausted and pleasantly tipsy. He raised his beer to his lips, sighing as the cool, fizzy liquid washed the aftertaste of whiskey from his mouth, quenching something within him that wasn’t thirst.

The cake that Hawkeye had prepared sat untouched on the kitchen table, its creator hovering beside it, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Eventually, he retrieved a tin from the kitchen cabinet to box it up for later. “So, uh… what’s the new job like? Is it a nice place? Nice people? Minimal risk of surprise dismissal and/or physical violence?”

Trapper shrugged. “Nice lady boss. I think she liked me.”

Hawkeye chuckled. “Be sure to wear your wedding band, dear. She might not realise you’re spoken for.”

“She knows.”

But Trapper’s answer raised a whole lot of other questions, and Hawkeye was nothing if not inquisitive. “What did you tell her?”

Lifting his head briefly from the back of the couch, Trapper shot him a look. “Does it matter?”

The shrug Hawkeye gave said ‘I guess not’ but the way he turned away and set about tidying up the kitchen a little too loudly suggested he was annoyed about something. Trapper watched him silently through languid, half-closed eyes. “Hey. You ain’t mad at me, are ya?”

“Mad? Why would I be mad? The cake kept. Like you said…” Hawkeye gave a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s your birthday, and… and you were celebrating.”

Trapper didn’t see the slightly tense smile, or the way it faded to a worried frown as he turned away. Instead, Trapper simply went back to his bottle, grateful that Hawkeye was being understanding. He was a lucky guy, really. He really was a beautiful human being, his Hawkeye. Occasionally loud and obnoxious, sure, but even that was _fun_ in its own way. And he cut a handsome figure: tall and rangy, with slightly bad posture, skinny legs, and a cute, round little backside that Trapper couldn’t keep his hands off. Watching him now, Trapper felt a distinct stirring, and, sipping his beer, he licked his lips in anticipation of further celebrations.

“Hey, Hawk?”

“Hmm?”

Trapper pointed to the spot on the carpet between his legs. “Get your ass over here. I ain’t thanked you properly for my cake yet.”

Hawkeye looked up. Trapper had a tone that, if used in conjunction with the right phrasing, could cheer him up (or turn him on) like the flip of a switch. And this was exactly that tone. A smile spread across his features, replacing the pensive scowl, and he bounded across the living room in a few long strides settling on the floor between Trapper’s knees. He settled himself cosily, legs crossed, back pressed against the base of the couch, elbows hitched up on Trapper’s thighs as if they were the arms of an easy chair. “I love you.” The words were murmured against the wool of Trapper’s suit trousers as Hawkeye pressed a kiss to his knee.

Smiling to himself, Trapper’s hands moved straight to Hawkeye’s shoulders. He knew how best to make up with Hawkeye by now, and a little physicality was nearly always enough to make him forget about whatever transgression had landed him in the dog house. For an extra measure, though, he leaned down and brushed his lips to Hawkeye’s ear. “Sorry I kept ya waitin’ around all day. I didn’t mean to lose track o’ time like that.”

As he said it, his fingers sought out the best erogenous zone on Hawkeye’s neck, and Hawkeye sighed dreamily.

“So… are we good?”

“Mmmm-hmmm… Just so you know, I’ve got a little kink just on the right hand side from whisking, so I think you ought to pay special attention to– _oooh_ that’s heaven!”

Trapper’s fingers were firm but tender, seeking out all the knots and sore spots. Hawkeye wriggled appreciatively. Smirking to himself, Trapper focused his attentions on eliciting the most entertaining, pleasurable reactions. He had to admit, he was no expert in massage, but as long as Hawkeye was making all his best noises, that meant he was doing a good job.

That was one of them… that breathy, half-moaning half-whining noise he made when he was either hungover or lost in pleasure – and Trapper was fairly certain Hawkeye hadn’t been drinking. Smirking, he leaned forwards. “You know what I think?”

Hawkeye whimpered again. “What?”

“I think I know what I’d like for my birthday.” Another slide of fingers over muscle, and Hawkeye chuckled.

“I think _I’ve_ got a fair idea.” Hawkeye turned around, an impish smile on his face as he pressed closer, leaning over Trapper’s body to kiss him as he captured him in between his arms. “Let me guess. A romantic bubble bath for two with one of my patented foot-rubs? A full body massage with special attention to the fun parts? Or perhaps my barber shop special – colour, cut, and blow-job. And I promise not to mix up the hair tonic and the petroleum jelly this time.”

Trapper gave a throaty chuckle. “How about: you, on your back, in our bed, with your ass in the air?”

Hawkeye’s smile faded a little, and he gave a dry chuckle. “And they say romance is dead.”

Laughing at Hawkeye’s sulk, Trapper gave him a gentle shove with his knee. “You’re such a _girl_.”

“I’m a _romantic_!” Hawkeye articulated, his tone taking on an edge of frustration.

Trapper shrugged and gestured with his beer bottle. “Right. Whatever. Well, I’m a simple guy from the Boston slums, not some broad you gotta seduce. So spare me the hearts an’ flowers routine, huh?”

It was said in jest, but nonetheless, Hawkeye grimaced a little, hesitating for a moment, as if not wanting to complain but somehow unable to let the comment go unchecked. “I don’t _need_ hearts and flowers, Trapper. But maybe just… chopped liver and a houseplant might be nice.”

Trapper nodded. “Fine. On _your_ birthday ya can have hearts an’ flowers. Or liver an’ a houseplant. Whatever you want. Me – I’d just like a little fun!”

“Okay, deal!” Slapping Trapper’s thigh, Hawkeye hauled himself to his feet. “You – my handsome, delectable, whiskey-powered sex-machine – go sort the bed out. I’m going to freshen up.”

Trapper gave him a curious glance as he swanned off. “Sort the bed out?”

“Yeah, you know…” Hawkeye made a strange gesture that left Trapper no better informed than he had been previously. And so, as Hawkeye disappeared off to the bathroom, Trapper was left to wonder why the bed needed ‘sorting out’.

It didn’t take him long to find out.

As he made his way through to their bedroom, he was met with chaos: it seemed that Hawkeye, left alone for the entire morning, had taken upon himself to destroy their bedroom.

Trapper had discovered long ago that Hawkeye was a fidget in bed, even if sharing it with someone. If he had the whole thing to himself, apparently, he was _worse_. The sheets were pulled out from every corner, the comforter balled up and kicked onto the floor. Normal people laid in – Hawkeye _nested._ His protest was always that he was too hot – the same reason why he refused to sleep in anything more than his underwear – and as a result of this perpetual overheating, he had a tendency to kick off the covers and wrap himself in the sheet. At first it had been cute. About a year ago, it had become _annoying._ Was the man _incapable_ of just sleeping like a normal human being?

Irritated, Trapper re-made the bed hastily – and a little sloppily – knowing full well that they were only about to mess it all up again. With the sheet shoved under the mattress, he set about disrobing and hanging his one and only nice suit up ready for another day. His boxer shorts, he noticed as he removed them, had acquired another hole, and he added them to the pile of repairs that was rapidly growing on the dresser. As he did, the door creaked open and he found himself being tackled by a pleasantly affectionate – and also very naked – Hawkeye Pierce. Long, slender arms snaked around his chest, and an unshaven face nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

“Hey, Hawk.”

“Hey.” The greeting was mumbled into the crook of his neck, where Hawkeye was now kissing.

“Heck of a job you did on the bed. How’d ya manage to make such a mess just sleepin’, huh?”

“Sorry.” Hawkeye kissed his cheek and then went in search of his lips.

Trapper turned, giving him a little help, and capturing his naked lover in his arms and kissing him, long and deep. “Hey, look. All your clothes’ve gone.”

Hawkeye chuckled. “Yours too.” His hands ran down the length of Trapper’s arms, fingers teasing at skin, until he found his hands, and enveloped them in his own.

Trapper winced. “Ouch!”

He’d almost forgotten about his argument with the wall. But now, as Hawkeye’s fingers grazed across his sore knuckles, his nervous system very kindly reminded him.

‘ _Whoa, busted…’_

Hawkeye’s eyes widened. “Trapper! What happened? What did you do to yourself?” He immediately went into doctor mode, clutching his hand and checking for broken bones.

“Ah!” Fumbling for an explanation, Trapper pulled his hand away. “I tripped.”

The look Hawkeye gave him was an accusation without words.

“Okay… look, I ain’t too happy about takin’ this job, y’know! I had a moment… I did a dumb thing…”

Hawkeye was more concerned than angry, but his voice raised just the same. “You can say that again! God, Trapper, what got into you?”

Trapper whipped his hand away. “ _Nothin_ ’! I’m fine now.” He made a gesture of finality.

“We should bathe that…”

“It don’t need it! I’m _fine_! Fit as a fiddle! See, I’ll prove it!” Scooping Hawkeye up in his arms, Trapper listed sideward and dropped onto the mattress. Hawkeye atop his chest with a grunt, and they rolled over, until Trapper had him settled beneath him, a predatory grin on his face. He couldn’t argue with Hawkeye, but he could distract him…

“It’ll just take a minute!” Any further protests regarding Trapper’s injury were swallowed up in kisses.

“You’re _all_ the treatment I need…” The words were purred against Hawkeye’s lips as Trapper carefully manoeuvred him into position, his hands hooking under his knees, strong hands grasping at the backs of his thighs.

“Hey…?”

Trapper shot Hawkeye a wicked smirk. “Get some endorphins goin’…”

“Trap?”

“Nice bit o’ natural anaesthesia to dull the–”

“What are you _doing_?! _STOP_!”

Trapper froze, staring at him in wide eyed confusion. “You know, this is a helluva lot o’ fuss over a grazed knuckle!”

Hawkeye made a face and socked him in the shoulder.

“ _Ow_! What was _that_ for!”

“Not your _knuckles_ you moron!”

Continuing to stare at him blankly, Trapper blinked a couple of times, hovering above him on the mattress. His brain didn’t want to co-operate – the blood was currently redirected elsewhere – but Hawkeye’s expression indicated he’d missed something important. It wasn’t like they still used rubbers – they’d abandoned the idea of safe sex somewhere around 1955, about a year or so after they’d accidentally abandoned the practice of it – so it couldn’t be that.

At last, the other shoe dropped. “You mean you didn’t…” He gestured towards the bathroom.

“I _said_ ‘I’m going to freshen up’ and that’s what I _did_! If I meant ‘I’m going to go lube myself up to save you the trouble’, that’s what I would have _said_!” Another sock in the chest punctuated his outburst.

“Hey, I’m sorry!” Trapper sighed, hauling himself up on the bed, his weight resting heavily on both hands as he hovered above Hawkeye, the moment half-killed by his own rashness. Trapper swiftly sought to revive it… “Where’s the stuff?”

“Nightstand.”

Hawkeye’s face was unreadable, but Trapper decided that if there was ever a time to push one’s luck, it was on a milestone birthday. “Could ya do the honours?”

There was a moment of uneasy silence, until, with a roll of his eyes, Hawkeye pushed Trapper aside, sliding out from under him and shifting over to the edge of the bed to rummage in the nightstand. “I have to do _everything_ myself around here…”

Trapper didn’t argue with that. Truth be told, as far as some things were concerned, he really did prefer it if Hawkeye took care of it.

* * *

 

A not-particularly-vast amount of time later, Hawkeye found himself alone, propped up against the headboard, still naked and rather unpleasantly sticky. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled a time when he would refer to the post-coital feeling as ‘afterglow’, but, at some point over the past couple of years, the term had really ceased to apply. Maybe this was just how things got after a while? Maybe this was what familiarity felt like? He wasn’t sure – he’d never stuck around for long enough to find out, until now.

Agitated by his growing discomfort, Hawkeye pushed the covers away, kicking his legs free to lounge atop the bedding and cool down.

Through the wall, he could hear the patter of running water from the adjacent bathroom as Trapper took his ritual shower, and Hawkeye huffed impatiently.

There was something distinctly unpleasant about being left alone immediately after making love. It went against every fibre of his being! This was the time he was supposed to spend basking in his lover’s arms, brushing their hair from their eyes and telling them how wonderful they’d been. This was the moment when he was supposed to be luxuriating in the feel of skin on skin, buzzing with delight over the passionate moment they had just shared.

And here he was, luxuriating in boredom in the damp patch, alone.

Feeling mildly irritated, he picked up one of his nudist magazines from the hiding place down the side of the bed, and idly began to flick through, burrowing deeper into his pillows with one hand raised to his mouth. As he lay there, immersed in erotic fantasy, his lips parted and he began to suck gently on the tip of his thumb, scarcely even aware of what he was doing.

The bedroom door opened again, and Hawkeye yanked his thumb free from his mouth and tossed the magazine back down the side of the bed.

Trapper sauntered into the room, wrapped cosily in his yellow robe, and towelling his hair. “I saw that.”

“Saw what?” Hawkeye made an innocent face and adopted a pose not unlike some nude goddess in a classical painting. His air of nonchalance hid a very real embarrassment: _one_ of his dirty habits was something shameful: a perpetual compulsion from which he had thought he had freed himself and matured beyond, but had re-emerged over recent months for some inexplicable reason, much to his dismay. The _other_ was just a naughty magazine.

“You an’ your magazines,” Trapper muttered half to himself as he flopped onto the bed. “It ain’t exactly great for a guy’s ego, y’know. _Especially_ right after… y’know.”

Hawkeye gave a tight smile. He knew Trapper wanted to hear a promise to stop, but Hawkeye was no liar. Instead, he reached out and caressed Trapper’s arm. “Don’t be jealous.” The terry cloth fabric was rough and scratchy beneath his fingers, worn out from too many years or wear and washing. If he tried very hard, he could just about remember a time when it was soft and fluffy, its yellow more vivid, its fibres full and pleasant to the touch. “I’m not… frustrated, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well, good, ‘cos I just got showered an’ it’ll be a real waste o’ water if I had to work up a sweat again givin’ you another goin’ over.”

He knew it was meant as a joke, but Hawkeye didn’t feel terribly humorous. His hand slid up to Trapper’s wet hair, toying with the curls. “Why do you always do that?” he said at last.

“Do what?” Trapper hauled his body onto the bed, nestling down beside Hawkeye, his arm snaking around his gangly body.

“Run off to the shower as soon as we’re done. Would it kill you to wait around and… bask in the after-glow for a little while?”

“An’ do what?”

“I don’t know. _Talk_? Cuddle? Compare notes?”

Trapper smirked. “You talk plenty!”

“It’s less _fun_ on your own.”

“I came back, didn’t I?” Rolling over, Trapper gathered Hawkeye in his arms, pulling him close. “See, here I am. The doctor is in, available for all your pillow talk an’ baskin’ needs.” He quirked a smile, and pressed a kiss to Hawkeye’s nose. “An’ tonight, we can bask as long as ya want…” Another kiss, this time on the lips.

“Mm. Sounds good.”

“Just so long as I can get up for work in the mornin’… What time is it, anyway?”

Hawkeye turned over, grabbing the bright turquoise boomerang-shaped clock from the nightstand. “Uh-oh.” He shot Trapper a mock-concerned look. “I’m afraid it’s bad news, Trap.”

“What? It can’t be _that_ late? It’s still light out!”

Turning the clock to face him, Hawkeye smirked. “It’s gone half four. You know what that means!”

Slumping onto his back, Trapper groaned and raised a finger. “ _Don’t_ say it!”

“Me? I’m saying nothing.”

“I mean it!”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Great. Keep ‘em that way.”

As Hawkeye gently set the clock back down on the nightstand, Trapper continued to stare at the ceiling, a decisive pout on his face. At last, Hawkeye could contain himself no longer, and he crept closer… “Happy fortieth birthday, honey.”

The words were murmured playfully into Trapper’s ear, and, not a moment later, he raised his hands to his head, clutching at his hair as he sighed a great, weary sigh, and moaned: “ _Forty years_ – _fuck_!”

And, beside him, Hawkeye cackled with glee, and wrapped himself affectionately around Trapper’s yellow-towelling-clad, forty-year-old body.


	3. THREE...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the mid-1950s, Dr. Dennis Parr wrote an article criticising the popular medical view of homosexuality as a disease, and suggested that treatment as such was ineffective and pointless. The article, perhaps radical for its time, can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1973178/pdf/brmedj03149-0031.pdf while the responses of Hawkeye and Trapper are explored in this chapter. My beta reader, captaintransvestite, stumbled across the article while researching, and this instalment was born from our subsequent discussion.

**July 1958**

The somewhat tinny imitation of a marching band crackled through the speakers of the television. Trapper, squatting in front of the tiny set with a mug of coffee in his hand, reached out and twiddled with the aerial once more. The sound cleared up instantly, and the nasal tones of the announcer began to narrate the events being depicted, which was fortunate as the picture had now developed three distinct lines of static, obscuring much of them from view.

"I don't know how you can watch that," Hawkeye muttered from the kitchen, stuffing a slice of toast into his mouth while he rummaged in the cabinets for his favourite mug.

Trapper shrugged. "It's because it's live, Hawk. The set is fine, there ain't nothin' wrong with it." The set was Trapper's baby, bought from the pawn shop after he had saved up to buy himself a proper birthday present with his meagre salary.

"I meant the show, not the signal!"

On the screen in front of Trapper, the daily news show was showing an extended bulletin dedicated to the city's Independence Day celebrations – a parade of stars and stripes in glorious black, white and grey – while a commentator droned over the festivities.

The sound cut out again, and Trapper swore and twiddled the antenna.

Concluding that his cup was nowhere to be found in the kitchen, Hawkeye expanded his search into the living room, hovering over Trapper with a suspicious and keen eye. Trapper didn't notice, preoccupied as he was with his TV, as Hawkeye examined the cup in his hand, and stole it back, contentedly swilling his coffee. As he turned away, he delivered a swift kick to the television set.

It gave a disturbing clunk, but the picture and sound cleared up instantly.

"Hey, _watch_ it!"

"I'd really rather not." A shudder of distaste passed over Hawkeye's features as he regarded the show from over his shoulder. The picture had changed to a group of soldiers, all in formal garb, saluting in perfect unison in front of a backdrop of American flags. He gave a derisive snort and spoke loudly over the commentary: "' _And now, we pay our tribute to the brave, patriotic, heterosexual soldiers of the United States Army_.'"

Trapper scowled. "Knock that off, Hawk. I'm watchin' this. We're vets too, y'know."

Snorting, Hawkeye took a swig of his stolen coffee. "You don't really think they're including _us_ in this flag-flying pantomime, do you?" Ignoring the TV, Hawkeye went over to the side table to rifle through the mail for anything that wasn't a bill to distract himself.

"Not exactly."

"Because they made their feelings towards us perfectly clear back in Seoul! The United States Army thinks we're the scum of the earth, and as far as _I'm_ concerned the feeling's mutual."

"Hey! You don't have to shoot your mouth off at _me_! The army screwed us _both_ over, remember? An' yeah, I sure as hell ain't about to go cap-in-hand to the V.A. expectin' any respect, but even so – I'm _proud_ o' what we did in Korea."

"Well, so am I, but I'm not letting MacArthur take credit for all those nurses."

Trapper shot him a look. "Joke all ya want. We did good work over there. We saved a lotta kids."

"Yeah, a lotta kids who shouldn't have had to _be_ there!" Snatching up a large manila envelope, Hawkeye stalked off to the couch. "Keep talking like that, they'll think you got a taste for it! They'll send you back."

"Don't talk hooey."

"You're right. They won't send you back to Korea. My money's on Vietnam – I hear Eisenhower's getting pissy with Ho Chi Minh."

"Shut up, Hawkeye, an' read your dirty magazine."

Hawkeye eyed the package in his hands somewhat guiltily. "You know, I think I will. It's more tasteful than this _dreck_ you're watching."

The manila envelope opened with a delightful crinkle, and Hawkeye slid the slim volume free from its light brown housing.

It wasn't what he thought.

Turning the issue over in his hands, Hawkeye's brow furrowed. Where he had anticipated seeing provocative photographs of girls in bikinis, or of shirtless cowboys lounging against fence-posts, there was nought but lines of crisp, black, printed text, topped with a crest featuring a spiralling snake wrapped around a wooden staff. A trailing ribbon declared the title of the publication – the British Medical Journal – and the letter clipped to the cover announced its origin: sent from Maine, courtesy of Hawkeye's father.

"Huh."

"What is it?" Trapper didn't sound all that interested, and, judging by the back of his head, he didn't look it either.

"It's from my dad."

"Your _dad's_ sendin' you filth now?"

"It's _not_ smut!"

"Makes a damned change."

Hawkeye didn't hear him. He was scanning through the contents of the journal. It didn't take him long to find the circled title on the front page, and he tensed instantly. Feeling strangely anxious, he flicked through to the relevant page and began to read.

"Oh my god… oh my _god_!"

"You sure that ain't smut you're readin'?"

Leaping up from the couch, Hawkeye paced the room clutching his journal. "Trapper listen to this: ' _According to the psycho-analysts, a homosexual component (sometimes conscious but often not) exists in_ everybody _; and if this is correct homosexuality in this sense is universal_.'"

Trapper glanced up. " _Sounds_ like one o' those dirty stories you're always harpin' on."

"Do you mind?! This is _serious_!"

"What _is_ it?!"

"Medical journal. British, last year. My dad sent it."

"Why did your old man send you a year old British medical journal?"

"Because of the _article_! If you would shut up and listen for five minutes it'll make _sense_!"

"No! I'm watchin' the TV! _You_ read it! _Quietly_!"

"But I want you to hear this!"

" _What the hell for_?!"

"It's ground-breaking! He's… he's standing up to the system! You know all those god-awful mental institutions, medical-grade torture inflicted by quack doctors in the name of socio-sexual conformity!"

"Hawkeye, what in God's name are you _talkin'_ about?"

" _Conversion_ therapies!" Hawkeye gestured enthusiastically with the journal, his hand shaking. "This is a peer-reviewed article published in a reputable journal testifying that it doesn't work! Look, don't take my word for it! Read it!"

Trapper eyed the proffered magazine, then waved a hand and turned away. "Knock it off, Hawk. It's too early in the morning."

"Too _early_ in the morning?"

"It's my _day_ _off_! I wanna relax an' watch the tube, not bury my nose in some stuffy journal about fucking… electric shock treatment and emetics and–"

"This is _important_! Don't you know what this could be starting? No more government sanctioned abuse of our people!"

"' _Our_ _people_?' Ya some sorta gay Moses now?"

"I'm _serious_! You know damned well what happens when they lock us up in those institutions! What those psychiatrists do in the name of 'helping', or what people put _themselves_ through to keep out of prison, spare their families, spare their _lives_! And here's a _bone fide_ doctor saying it's all _bull_! That it's _wrong_! Don't you see? This is the dawn of _progress_!"

Still, Trapper remained unmoved. He shifted his gaze from Hawkeye's imploring face, and looked back to the TV. "Great. Well, can progress at least wait until after breakfast? I don't wanna read about that sorta thing 'til I've stopped digestin'."

Hawkeye's entire body sagged, and he withdrew the journal, rolling it between his hands and clutching it to his chest. Slowly, he surrendered the issue and sank onto the couch.

Trapper cast him an irritated glance, and Hawkeye lowered the journal to his lap. "There! See! It's dropped!"

Trapper turned back to the television without a word. The commentator was now expounding upon the continuing fight against Communism at home and abroad, and Hawkeye wrinkled his nose and looked away.

"What is it that's bothering you so much, anyway?" he asked, unable to contain himself. "I told you – this guy's on _our_ side!"

Trapper tensed, his skin prickling like static electricity as he continued to stare frontwards, barely suppressing a shudder. He wondered if Hawkeye had noticed. "Nothin'," he said. "Nothin's botherin' me. I just ain't in the mood for politics."

"But you can stomach _this garbage_?!"

"I ain't watchin' this for the commentary! Just the parade!" Trapper immediately regretted his sharpness. He knew he should just turn it off and have done with it. He knew he was kidding himself thinking that even an ounce of all this pomp and ceremony was for him, or anybody like him. But, somehow, he longed for that simple pleasure he'd once held in watching this kind of display and finding hope and inspiration in it, instead of the sense of being an outsider looking in on his own country, disenfranchised from the American dream, exiled on home soil. There had been an _innocence_ to it all, once – before the war, before Korea, before Hawkeye – but he knew Hawkeye was far too jaded for all that, and he himself wasn't far off. "Look," he offered weakly, not even daring to look Hawkeye in the eye, "I _know_ you don't get it. I know you think I'm sellin' out just by _watchin'_ the damn thing, but all I want is half an hour where I can watch the streamers an' the confetti an' _pretend_ I walked away from the army with _somethin'_ other than a piece o' paper that ruined my life."

Hawkeye's eyes widened. His back stiffened and he sat up just a little straighter, his hands tensing in his lap. "Your _life_ is _ruined_?"

His head resting glumly on folded arms, Trapper continued to stare at the screen. "Ten years ago today I took Kathy an' Becky to the fireworks. Now, I'm sittin' in a damp-infested attic watchin' it all on a ten inch screen that keeps cuttin' out every time one of us _breathes_. From where I'm sittin', yeah – it's pretty fuckin' lousy."

His words were far crueller when spoken than they had sounded in his head, but Trapper didn't notice the effect they had. He didn't see the way Hawkeye turned away from him to hide the fact that he was blinking back tears, or the way he gnawed anxiously on this thumbnail. He swallowed, an unfamiliar sense of unease blocking his usual swift and cutting repartee. Licking his lips, he spoke: "Is it really that bad?" It wasn't a comeback. It wasn't a rebuttal. It was a plea for reassurance.

Trapper did not acquiesce. "Don't play dumb, Hawk You know _damned_ well what I've lost!"

That was all it took to throw another spanner into the conversation. Hawkeye stalled. He knew there was no arguing where Trapper's kids were involved.

And yet, in the silence that followed, Trapper sensed that his words were barbed in a way he hadn't intended. He looked up, forgetting about the television for a moment. "I didn't mean…" he added hastily, gesturing to Hawkeye. "I mean, no offense to you an' all. I ain't sayin' that you…"

"I'm sure you're not." Hawkeye spoke with more certainty than he felt, but he let the matter lie, and sat quietly, flicking through his journal.

The television cut away to a grainy shot of an American flag, and the national anthem began to play. Hawkeye cringed a little, but suppressed a derogatory comment. If Trapper wanted his day of fancying he had a modicum of respect as a veteran, then he could have it – and he could keep it. The army sure as hell wouldn't be thanking him for his services, so if a little shallow patriotism made Trapper feel better for an hour or so, then so be it…

"You're right about one thing," Hawkeye added, picking at a fraying seam on the arm of their ugly thrift-store couch. "You _did_ do good work in Korea. _Amazing_ work. And no matter what those nincompoops with the fancy uniforms say, _I'm_ proud to have served with you." Still no response, but Trapper glanced his way. Hawkeye patted the couch beside him. "Care to get off the floor, and keep your old war buddy company."

Perhaps a little reluctantly, Trapper rose from where he was crouched, shuffled backwards across the rug in case any sudden movements ruined the signal, and lowered himself onto the couch.

It was an uneasy truce, much like many of those in the Cold War. They sat in silence, Hawkeye uncharacteristically rigid and upright, Trapper slouching away from him with his head resting heavily on his hand as he leaned against the arm of the sagging couch. But, gradually, in a gesture that was both forgiveness and an apology, Trapper shifted closer, gradually cuddling up until he was half-lying with his head on Hawkeye's chest, but his feet still on the floor, knees bent, leaving him twisting from the waist.

"You sure you're okay like that?" Hawkeye's words were murmured into Trapper's hair.

"Yeah. I'm good."

"You sure? You could just pop your legs up here and spread out." Hawkeye patted Trapper's thigh, and he flinched.

"I _said_ I'm fine, Hawk! Would ya _back off_?"

The sigh that escaped Hawkeye _must_ have been felt by Trapper as the chest he was lying on deflated beneath him. "You _sure_ there's nothing up with you?"

No response.

The news bulletin ended, and the pair found themselves staring in silence at the commercial break.

Hawkeye changed the subject. "There's _'Looney Tunes'_ on the other side, y'know."

With a weary sigh, Trapper hauled himself up again, stomped over to the TV and changed the channel. The cartoons started up, and, relieved to be free of the nauseating patriotism of the 4th of July, Hawkeye relaxed a little, settling into the sofa as Trapper went to fetch himself another coffee. It was only after a minute or so alone, and the slam of the bedroom door, that Hawkeye realised he had no intention of returning to his side. And so, retreating back to his side of the couch, Hawkeye curled in on himself, opening the journal again, casually flicking through as he suckled at his thumb without really noticing.

* * *

The sense of unease that filled the apartment went on for much of the day. It wasn't like an argument waiting to happen, so much as an argument that _had_ happened but half the itinerary hadn't been covered.

When they went to bed that night, Trapper found himself looking at a pair of bony shoulder-blades instead of baby blues. With an irritated huff, Trapper slumped against the pillows and made his nightly attempt to retrieve the comforter from the untidy ball into which Hawkeye had kicked it.

"Don't be like this," he mumbled, his tone more prickly than placating.

"Like what?" Hawkeye tossed over his shoulder. "I'm not being 'like' anything. If anybody's being 'like' it's you. And I don't like it."

"I ain't been like nothin'!"

"Have too!"

"Oh, _there's_ mature!"

"Well, you _started_ it!"

"Did not!"

"Because I wouldn't read your stupid article."

Hawkeye rolled over and thumped his pillow. "I _knew_ that was bothering you! And it's _not_ stupid!"

Trapper didn't argue. He did something far worse – he _agreed_ for the sake of keeping the peace. "Fine. It's not stupid. Whatever you say."

Frustrated to the point of animated fury, Hawkeye threw back the blankets, pushing up from the mattress to kneel beside Trapper. "I can't believe you! Do you even know how radical it is for this guy to put this out here? To even suggest some of the things he's suggesting?" He was clutching the damned magazine again. Trapper had already begun to despise its presence even more than Hawkeye's growing collection of erotica.

Closing his eyes, Trapper sighed again, turning away. "Hawk…"

"Would you _please_ just read it? For _me_?"

"What difference would it make? I ain't a _doctor_ any more. I ain't nobody in charge o' policy or… or psychiatry or nothin'! I'm a _janitor_! An' _that's_ all! So I don't see any point in me readin' some paper by some head doctor in England who reckons there ain't no cure for bein'…" He paused, gesturing to Hawkeye and himself. "… whatever the hell we are."

Hawkeye blinked. "The _psychological_ term is 'bisexual'."

Trapper grimaced. "Yeah, well… I just don't see the point is all." He folded his arms across his chest, shrinking away as Hawkeye hovered over him, magazine in hand.

"The _point_ is that I'd like to be able to discuss this potentially _ground-breaking_ development in social attitudes towards our demographic with the only goddamned human being in life with whom I'm in the same boat, namely _you_!"

Shooting him a look, Trapper baulked a little. "We ain't exactly in the _same_ boat, Hawk. _One_ of us happens to be a little more experienced at sailin' in _that_ direction, if you get what I'm sayin'."

Hawkeye rolled his eyes. "Trapper, would you stop being such a pedant and just read the article? Just to let me know what you think! Just so I'm not alone in this!"

"You _ain't_ alone!" Trapper's words were spoken far too dismissively to offer much reassurance, and from behind a wall of defensive body language and an impenetrable scowl.

Hawkeye sat back on his heels, his lips tightening into a thin line as he finally sagged with defeat and looked away. "Then how come it feels that way sometimes?"

His words struck a chord, and Trapper deflated a little. He had nothing to say to this – nothing that could reassure Hawkeye's dwindling sense of emotional security without seriously undermining his own. As much as Hawkeye didn't get it, Trapper _did_ perceive a difference between them. But that wasn't so bad, was it? That wasn't a deal-breaker, surely!

And yet, as Trapper glanced up at Hawkeye, finding his gaze met with sad, imploring blue eyes, he could practically _feel_ the chasm opening up between them. And somehow, every little thing he said just seemed to take a crowbar to that widening gap, adding just a few more inches to the ever-growing distance. How long, he wondered, would it be until the distance was insurmountable? How long until they couldn't even reach one another anymore?

At last, in the absence of an answer to Hawkeye's question, Trapper merely shrugged. "I dunno how your brain works, Hawk. You tell me."

"Perhaps it's because _I'm_ the one who 'happens to be a little more experienced' and _somebody_ seems to think that makes a difference!"

Trapper had to look away. He knew a guilt trip when he heard one, and that one had got him right in his conscience. Maybe he was being a jerk. Hawkeye seemed unusually keen to discuss this – far moreso than his standard issue rants, which were usually brief and one-sided. Although the picture of Senator McCarthy had remained pinned to their dartboard until it disintegrated, and Trapper _had_ taken some joy in that particular act of rebellion, too. But, somehow this was different. This was _serious._ "This is really personal for you, ain't it?"

Hawkeye shot him a look. "Oh, you _noticed_! _Thank_ you, honey, that's so sweet!"

"Spare me your lip, Hawk. I'm tryin'a do right by you, don't throw it back in my face."

Hawkeye shifted uncomfortably, the tip of his thumb pressed against his lip. "Okay, you want personal? You really want to know where I'm coming from with this? I'll tell you." There was a gleam in his eyes that set Trapper on edge, but this was Hawkeye through and through.

"Okay, hit me."

Hawkeye bedded down, gazing at Trapper across the pillows, his voice low and hushed – a world away from his shrill ranting from earlier. He spoke gently, almost tentatively, and Trapper listened: "I was twenty-one when I finished pre-med. Medical school all lined up and waiting in Boston, had my whole life stretching out in front of me like a golden opportunity. I was young, I was ambitious… I was a mess. I'd spent most of college chasing girls and getting drunk, then I saw the state of my grades and I realised… my whole future was hanging in the balance! I _had_ to ace my finals or else my medical career was about to go up in smoke! So, I spent three weeks studying – no sleep, no rest, I was popping caffeine pills like they were candy! And then, two weeks later, it was done. And I packed my bags, cleaned out my dorm room, and went home. No idea whether I'd passed or failed – couldn't even remember sitting half the exams. Just… tried to relax, forget about it, wait it out in Crabapple Cove. I had a summer job working housekeeping in a motel near the beach, stripping beds, scrubbing toilets, you know, really stimulating stuff. After three days they found me walking in circles outside the laundry room having an argument with myself - I'm not entirely sure how you do that, but apparently I'm a natural!" Hawkeye grinned, but there was little humour in his voice. "So they laid me off, told my dad I was… _tired_ from college, needed to rest up, take it easy for a few weeks." He sighed, his eyes closing for a moment as he remembered… "The first morning I decided to go for a jog – a twenty mile jog. State trooper found me passed out at the side of the road somewhere near Rockport."

Trapper shook his head sadly. "Jesus, Hawk!"

"After that, Dad got scared. He couldn't stay home to keep an eye on me, and he panicked. I think he had visions of me taking a running jump off the cliffs at the end of the lane, or drowning myself in the stream in the back yard. So, he did what he thought was right: booked me in at Riverview Psychiatric to try and get me stable."

A chill ran through Trapper's spine at the idea. "Did it work?"

"No, I escaped and ran away to join the army."

Trapper stared at him. "Actually, that explains a lot."

Hawkeye laughed, and gave Trapper a playful shove. "Actually it did. A steady diet of sedatives, anti-psychotics and happy pills, and daily chats with the friendly neighbourhood psychiatrist. What he said actually made a lot of sense: I'd got too worked up staying up late studying. Too much caffeine, too much cortisol. All that energy had to go somewhere." He dropped his gaze to the bedspread, almost embarrassed. "Manic depression."

Trapper was stunned into silence. He'd heard Hawkeye use those words jokingly before now: ' _Hawkeye Pierce, M.D., manic depressive_ '. It had never occurred to him that he was only half kidding.

"Runs in the family," Hawkeye explained softly. "These things tend to. My mother had it, spent three months in hospital when I was a baby. Dad never told me until I got slapped with the same diagnosis. You know, he bribed the doctors to keep it off my record? Scared it would impact my medical career. People don't take too kindly to doctors who are certifiable nuts, even if it was just for a few weeks."

"An' to think you spent all that time making loony doctor jokes!"

Another knowing smile. "You know me – hiding in plain sight!"

"How long were you in there?"

"Three weeks. I listened to my therapist and took my happy pills like a good little crazy person, and on the third weekend when my dad came to visit, he took me home. And from that point on I've been a happy, sane little camper… mostly." Suddenly, the smile and good humour vanished. "Summer of forty-seven was a little touch-and-go. And Korea… Korea did a lot of damage."

"I remember…" Suddenly, Hawkeye's four-day sleepless escapade and subsequent attempt to tow a latrine to North Korea ceased to be a funny story about the pressures of working in a warzone. He'd never known. All these years, and he'd never known! He'd never thought of Hawkeye as _fragile_ before, but this new insight into his past shed light on cracks in his laid back façade that Trapper had never known were there. Gently, he reached out and cradled Hawkeye's hand in his own. "But they didn't do anything… no electroshock therapy or anythin' like that, right?"

Hawkeye shook his head. "No… But I _saw_ things in there, Trapper. It's not all getting in touch with your feelings and 'tell me about your mother'. It's… patients crying and screaming in the night, and people all in white telling you where to go and when to eat and when to go to bed. And _I_ was just… cooling off, you know? A brief intervention to stop me running myself into the ground – or into the Cove, whichever came first. But to think that people wind up in those places… not because they're sick, and not because they're _dangerous_ , but for _no other reason_ than the fact they're…" He paused, not wanting to use the medical terms that Trapper was so adverse to. "Different." He paused, staring down at the journal beside him, flicking at the pages with idle fingers. "That's why it means so much."

Trapper nodded. Finally, he was starting to get it.

Maybe he was being a jerk. Maybe he'd gotten so accustomed to brushing off Hawkeye's rants as abstract socio-political venting of steam that he'd blinded himself to the occasions when the political was also personal. Some things couldn't be exorcised by pinning newspaper pictures to dartboards or narrating the news with one's own cynical, scathing commentary. As much as Trapper liked to avoid thinking too much on how society perceived Hawkeye and himself, Hawkeye not only _thought_ about it, but sought to challenge it head on.

Reluctantly, Trapper held out his hand. "Fine. Toss me that paper."

Overjoyed, Hawkeye handed him the journal, and burrowed down beside him, resting his head on his shoulder to read along. Trapper turned his attention to the paper – which wasn't easy given that he had Hawkeye's hair tickling his ear and Hawkeye's hand massaging his naked upper arm in what he probably thought was a soothing manner.

It wasn't. Trapper ignored him and read on anyway. And, as much as he tried to push the feeling back, the words gave him an awful, uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He wanted for all the world to screw it up and toss it away. But he didn't. His fingers tensed, the paper creased. Hawkeye cuddled closer, seemingly in anticipation.

At last, Trapper looked up.

Hawkeye stared at him. "Well? What do you think?!"

Trapper let the journal fall to his lap. "Well…"

Beside him, Hawkeye bounced on the mattress on his knees. "Come on! I want to hear what you think!"

"I… I dunno, Hawk, I just don't get what you're expectin' me to see here!"

"What do you mean you don't know? How can you _not_ have an opinion on this?"

"Hawkeye, I _wish_ I could be as happy about all this as you are, but all I see is some doctor talkin' about us like a _disease_ , an' then tellin' us there's no cure! So I don't know what you're seein', but I don't see nothin' hopeful in bein' talked about like that!"

"But didn't you see–?"

"My personal life ain't a _pathology_!"

"But _listen_!" Snatching up the journal from the bed, Hawkeye flicked through to the final page of the article. "Just listen to what this guy says! 'If _homosexuality is a disease (as has often been suggested), it is in a vast number of cases monosymptomatic, non-progressive, and compatible with subjective well-being and objective efficiency. In our series, both practising and non-practising homosexuals were on the whole_ successful and valuable members of society _, quite unlike the popular conception of such persons as vicious, criminal, effete, or depraved_.' He's talking decriminalisation…!"

" _Where_? Where does it say that? I ain't seein' that!"

"… refuting the links with immorality, violence, paedophilia – this is _radical_! He's telling the world we're _okay_!"

Trapper's lip curled. "Yeah? Well, maybe he could tell my ex-wife an' her lawyers that!" He didn't mean to explode. He didn't mean to raise his voice to Hawkeye. It was all too much! The atmosphere of the day had worn him down; Hawkeye's confession had shocked him more than he cared to admit; and now the sheer gut-wrenching discomfort of reading that stupid article had broken him. A sob escaped him, and he pressed both hands to his face, hiding as he rested his head back against the headboard. " _Fuck_ …"

Hawkeye's heart broke, and, shaking, he pushed the journal aside and gathered Trapper in his arms. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have pushed it!" His voice was soft, worlds apart from his angry ranting earlier. He ran a soothing hand through Trapper's golden curls, but his lover remained rigid in his arms, save for the occasional tremor. "I thought it might help!"

Trapper gave a bitter laugh. "Help?" Gradually, he emerged from his shell. "Ya got some funny ideas, Hawk, I'm tellin' ya…"

"I know. I'm a moron. I get it."

Did he? As Trapper allowed himself to be held, he wondered just how much Hawkeye understood. He'd told him, when they were first reunited on American soil, on Daniel Pierce's porch back in Maine, how close he himself had come to the clutches of the psychiatric hospital; how his wife and parents had offered him one last ultimatum: to get 'help' or get out. He had chosen out – he had chosen Hawkeye. Perhaps that was made things so hard: the fact that he had a _choice_. He wasn't like those guys out there faking it with women, hiding, or the ones forced to pick between persecution and perpetual solitude – he had _options_. And yet here he was. With Hawkeye.

And what Hawkeye didn't know, of course, was the fact that somewhere deep down, in the darkest place Trapper went to on the darkest days, there was a part of him that questioned how far that choice would go. If someone were to make that deal with him again – get help and get his children back, get his life back – would he take it? Walk into some clinic, stick around for a few weeks and walk out a confirmed heterosexual; contest Louise's custody rights, have a certified head-doctor testify to his recovery and reformation, and be called 'daddy' again by his two adoring girls instead of 'homo' and 'fag' by passing strangers in the corridors of their building…

It wasn't like he had far to go. Hawkeye was practically the only guy he'd ever looked twice at. It wasn't like he'd be losing much of himself. Would he?

"Trapper?"

Trapper blinked away his tears. He shouldn't do down that road, and he knew it. It wasn't an option anymore. In spite of the awful feelings that gnawed away at his gut on his darkest days – on the days when vicious words snarled at him by strangers stung more than he cared to let on, or the days when he let himself think a little too deeply on his place in the world – he knew it was too late for that.

And yet somehow, he was still inclined to wonder, 'what if…?'

Comforting fingers running through his hair broke his thoughts, and he returned to earth. "Hawk?"

Looking up, he regarded the man in his arms, the one gazing down at him with concern and understanding, and he was wracked with guilt for even _contemplating_ such a thing. He couldn't admit those thoughts to Hawkeye – certainly not now, knowing what he knew. Hawkeye wouldn't get it, wouldn't understand. He could never know just how much of himself Trapper saw in those 100 case studies described in that harrowing article in which Hawkeye saw so much hope, but Trapper saw only clinical indifference and despair. That, and his own desperation mirrored back at him.

And so, in the absence of words, Trapper kissed him. It was the kind of kiss that spoke a thousand words and Hawkeye couldn't decipher any of them, and that was exactly how Trapper wanted it. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to dig up the mess of emotions he'd been battling with all day. He didn't want to think. He just wanted to feel. Wanted to wrap himself up in Hawkeye and remind himself just how much he meant to him and tell himself he was worth it. He moved fast, as he often did when the mood took him. Teeth clashed and noses got in the way and fingers pulled at hair as Trapper managed to envelope Hawkeye in his arms and roll him onto the mattress all in one more. Hawkeye gave a grunt of alarm as he landed on his back.

"Ow!"

Trapper bit his throat. "I want you…"

"Yeah, I kinda noticed. The kissing and the – ah! – biting gave it away."

Somewhere in between his own heavy breathing and his attempts to devour Hawkeye's neck, Trapper registered some lack of enthusiasm. "Ya up for it? Hmm?" He tried for a seductive tone, but he wasn't quite in the right frame of mind for this. He was already several steps ahead of Hawkeye.

Blinking up at him, Hawkeye rubbed at his raw throat. "Trapper, would you stop? You've gone from academic disagreement to tears and sympathy to trying to nail me into the mattress in the space of five minutes! Even for a manic depressive, my moods don't swing that fast!"

"I'll get ya in the mood…"

"What's going _on_ with you? Can we… _talk_ , or… or _something_?"

"Don't need to talk – I just _need_ you right now." His hands gripped at Hawkeye's arms, his sides, anywhere he could get purchase.

"It's late!"

"I'll sleep better!"

"What am I, a human sedative now?" Hawkeye gave an incredulous laugh, but Trapper was already tugging at his boxer shorts. "Okay, fine…" With but the merest tingle of arousal, Hawkeye acquiesced, and lifted his hips so Trapper could finish stripping him. "Would you be offended if I read my book?"

Trapper didn't laugh. Hawkeye stopped making jokes. It wasn't exactly a passionate seduction, he was forced to admit, but clearly Trapper needed some kind of intimacy, and… well, Hawkeye didn't feel all that inclined to argue the toss. Relenting but not exactly enthusiastic, he settled himself on his pillow, staring at the pattern on the wallpaper as he cradled his head restfully in the crook of his elbow, listening to the litany of heavy breathing, punctuated only by the bang of the nightstand drawer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. FOUR...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Please be aware that this chapter opens with the sex scene rather than closes with it. Reader discretion is advised due to the adult nature of the overall arc (sexual discussions, sexual problems, etc).

** February 1959 **

This morning wasn’t supposed to go like this. He’d got up, nice and early, aiming to head into work with time to spare, but then this had happened…

 _Hawkeye_ had happened.

His morning shower had been… well, not so much interrupted as _commandeered_ by a skinny, naked visitor demanding to share the hot water and offering to scrub his back.

To be fair, he had done his best to resist.

_“I ain’t got time for this!”_

_“But it’s Valentine’s Day! I want to do something nice. Let me get at those shoulders!”_

_“C’mon, Hawk, you’re gonna make me late for work!”_

Hawkeye had made the most exaggerated sigh as he manhandled Trapper into the spot where he wanted him. He sounded almost _scornful_! Trapper winced at his words: _“My God, how will they cope?! Nobody to sweep up the lint and clear the dirty magazines out of the break room from the night before! ”_

That had stung. Trapper had stewed for a moment, silently glowering at the wall as Hawkeye lathered up his back for him, but eventually decided to take out his irritation in a way that pretty much ensured they _both_ got what they wanted – a cathartic, non-too-gentle fuck against the shower wall. It wasn’t exactly romantic, but Hawkeye hadn’t seemed to mind.

Ten minutes and one refreshing release later, and Trapper had practically forgotten why he’d been annoyed with Hawkeye in the first place, sagging contentedly against his lover’s naked back, his forehead dropping to Hawkeye’s shoulder as the water cascaded down upon them. He pressed a kiss to his wet skin and mumbled, “I love doin’ it like this…”

Hawkeye shifted a little from his position, leaning somewhat precariously against the candy pink and mint green tiles that adorned the bathroom wall, feet planted as firmly as he could manage on the base of the bathtub. He tilted his head a little to glance over his shoulder. “Like what?” He nuzzled his face against Trapper’s morning stubble, lips curving into a smile as he found the softer spot on his temple where curls met beard.

“Under the water,” Trapper slurred against his neck, his thoughts still scattered and fogged from his orgasm as he rested contentedly against Hawkeye’s back.

Hawkeye turned in Trapper’s arms, his hands roaming over his torso and his lips occupying themselves with exploring his neck. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

Trapper suddenly felt an unpleasant stab of reality. ‘ _Because it feels clean. Less dirty. Less sinful. Wash away the filth before it can stick…_ ’ He flinched at the very thought. His head rose from its resting place, twitching away from Hawkeye’s kisses, and he bit his lip as if to silence his own paranoid mind. Forcing a smile, he pulled back a little, shrugged, and swatted Hawkeye playfully on the backside. “This is how I like ya best – slippery when wet.”

Hawkeye laughed, and Trapper breathed a sigh of relief and went back to the task of rinsing the suds from his hair – which he _had_ been doing before Hawkeye had showed up.

“Want me to do you back?” Hawkeye offered with a smile.

Trapper tensed. “What?” His blood ran cold, despite the hot water. They’d had this conversation before… not in a long while though.

“Your _back_ ,” Hawkeye clarified, grabbed a sponge and gesturing to Trapper to turn around. “Come on, let me finish what I started.”

“Thought ya already had...” Trapper chuckled, turning to allow Hawkeye to massage his shoulders once more with soapy hands.

There was a laugh somewhere near his left ear. “Hey, _I_ just came in to scrub your shoulders! But _somebody_ had other ideas.”

Trapper snorted through the bubbles and rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hear you complainin’.”

The movement of the sponge on his left scapula slowed for a moment. “Hmm. Guess not.” A pause. “You were a little rough, actually.”

“Sorry.”

“Soap is a lousy lubricant.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Trapper cringed and rolled his eyes again. How he loathed the word ‘lubricant’! Reminded him of axel grease, or medical practices, none of which made good pillow-talk. When it came to certain aspects of the bedroom, Trapper stuck to innuendo. Hawkeye, it seemed, did not.

Mercifully, Hawkeye moved away from the subject of marital aids, and focused on rubbing Trapper’s shoulders. “Hitting the spot?” he asked smugly.

Trapper sighed. This _was_ nice. Maybe he should have restrained himself and let Hawkeye do his thing… Hands that had been massaging then caught his upper arms in a strong grip, turning him back to face him, roaming across his chest, groping a little.

“Um… Trapper?”

Hissing as the water stung his eyes, Trapper gave his scalp a rigorous rub, shrugging Hawkeye off him, but giving him a little peck of a kiss. “What?”

Hawkeye gave him a slightly tense look, trying to smile while chewing on his lip. “Don’t I get a turn?”

Trapper paused in his ablutions, giving Hawkeye’s naked body a cursory glance. “Ya mean ya didn’t…?”

Hawkeye gave a short, sharp, humourless laugh, his eyes narrowing. “You know, contrary to what _you_ seem to think, I _do_ actually need a little helping hand from time to time.” Stepping up close, he gave a suggestive smirk and wrapped his arms around Trapper, pressing against him. “So uh… you’ve had yours… do I get mine?”

Trapper pulled away, suddenly feeling less romantic. “What time is it?” Squinting through the steam, he glanced at the clock. “Ah, shoot – I gotta get to work!”

Hawkeye’s expression said it all, but he added some words anyway for effect: “You’re _kidding_!”

“I’m sorry, Hawk…” Placing his hands almost _reluctantly_ on Hawkeye’s hips, Trapper pushed him away. “Some other time, huh?”

Soap free and sexually sated, Trapper stepped out onto the flimsy bath mat, leaving Hawkeye alone in the tub – alone, and far from sated. He did his best to keep the frustration hidden as he stepped under the shower and began to lather his hair, biting on his lower lip. “Some other time – right. Why do I feel like I’ve heard this track before?”

Shivering in the draught from the window, Trapper snatched a towel from the rail and rubbed at his hair, trying not to notice how the smell of mildew in the bathroom had permeated everything in the room. He cast his eyes up to the ceiling – the black growth was rapidly spreading across the fresh paint they’d applied in the summer, along with a large yellow patch of damp that was reappearing in the exact same spot where the landlord had (begrudgingly) repaired the leak. Even with the window perpetually open, the mould was continuing to spread. This place was disgusting!

Trapper pulled his robe on, and wiped the condensation from the mirror with his sleeve so he could shave. In the reflection behind him, he could see Hawkeye lounging against the tiles of the shower, blithely carrying on without him…

Trapper baulked. “Cut that out, Hawk!”

“What’s the matter? Am I making you all hot and bothered? Causing a distraction?” A ludicrous grin was shot at him, following by a flick of soapy water.

Trapper didn’t answer. With the heat of passion faded, he actually found Hawkeye’s lewd displays more disturbing than arousing, and watching him cavort like that after his own desire was satisfied seemed somehow perverse. He didn’t know where to look!

Turning swiftly, Trapper yanked the curtain across.

“Well, _that’s_ nice!” Hawkeye flicked more water at him from the other side of the curtain.

“Ya don’t _need_ an audience, Hawk!”

“I would have _preferred_ participant…” The curtain twitched, and Hawkeye peeked out. “But _somebody_ bailed!”

Trapper glowered into the mirror and ran a hand over his stubble. “Right. I’m a real bastard. I know.” The curtain fell back into place. Trapper breathed a sigh of relief.

Screw shaving. He didn’t want to stick around for any longer than was necessary. With Hawkeye safely hidden away, Trapper hurriedly brushed his teeth, ducking out of the steamy bathroom before Hawkeye really got going and the obscene noises started.

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, and Trapper was dressed and hovering over the morning paper with a coffee in one hand and a bowl of cereal in the other. He carefully set the latter down on the table, and went to rummage through the contents of the sink for a spoon.

A dripping wet Hawkeye brushed past him in nought but a towel. Trapper ignored him. Or tried to, until he slipped in the puddles Hawkeye was leaving and couldn’t hold back a scowl.

Hawkeye didn’t notice – or pretended not to – as Trapper dropped a couple of dishcloths onto the linoleum and prodded angrily at them with the tip of his boot. Instead, he fished carton of juice out of the refrigerator and sloppily poured a helping (mostly) into his favourite mug.

Each of them took their place in silence, standing nose to nose across the table, Trapper staring at the paper as he devoured his morning cereal, Hawkeye hovering opposite.

Eventually, Trapper was forced to break the silence. “You workin’ today?”

“Uh-huh.” Hawkeye sniffed his orange juice and tasted it.

“What time?”

“Six.” Wrinkling his face, Hawkeye turned away and tossed the orange juice into the sink.

Trapper tried very hard not to comment – Hawkeye’s wastefulness of their food bugged him, but he knew better than to argue with his nose. If Hawkeye said it was off, then it was off, and he wouldn’t be told otherwise. Trapper didn’t want an argument. “Wanna be a sweetheart an’ get dressed so as you can drop me off at the factory on your way in?” He smiled winningly.

Hawkeye stared at him. “Not really.” Turning away, Hawkeye helped himself to the pot of coffee on the stove, added milk, and stood staring into the swirling liquid.

Trapper felt his hackles rise. He was in the dog house again. “You’re in a lousy mood,” he observed, hoping this would prompt Hawkeye to just come out with whatever it was that was bugging him.

“I’ve been better,” Hawkeye replied with a tight smile.

Trapper rolled his eyes so hard he almost sprained something. “What’s eatin’ you this time?”

The smile remained, and Hawkeye’s tone remained unchanged. “I’d rather not say.”

Shoving his cereal away, Trapper focused on the paper instead. He had quite lost his appetite… “For fuck’s sake Hawkeye, spit it out.”

Hawkeye sniffed his coffee. “No,” he said. “You won’t like it. You’ll get all snippy. And when you get snippy, you stew. And then when you stew, you break the crockery.”

The paper tore when he turned the page, and Trapper’s last thread of patience snapped. “Is this because I didn’t stick around an’ jerk you off in the shower?”

Still, Hawkeye stared at him. “No.”

Trapper’s hand tightened around his coffee cup. “Right. So are ya gonna tell me, or have I gotta spend the next five minutes tryin’a _guess_ so the pair of us ain’t goin’ into work feelin’ pissed off?”

“ _Oh_ no. We’ve had this conversation before. If I _tell_ you, you’ll get all snarky again. I’ve given up.”

“So _you’re_ gonna go _stew_ instead?”

“Actually, I thought I might try poaching this time. You stew enough for the both of us. Maybe we could try broiling?”

“Hawkeye, either grow the fuck up an’ tell me, or get your soggy ass an’ your bad attitude outta my face when I’m tryin’ to eat!”

Hawkeye mulled it over, seeming to hesitate a little as he returned to the table, coffee in hand. He blew gently into the steaming beverage, raised it to his lips, then seemed to think better of it and set it back down again. At last, almost reluctantly, he spoke: “You didn’t pull out.”

Now, it was Trapper’s turn to stare. It took him a moment to realise what Hawkeye had said, and then a moment longer to resist the urge to walk out of the room in disgust. There had been a time when he had relished the candour of being able to talk dirty or ask for what he wanted in bed – something Louise would _never_ have stood for – but, over the years, naughty pillow talk seemed to have deteriorated into cringe-making, clinical conversations about issues relating to bodily fluids, prophylactics and surgical lubricant, and Trapper could scarcely stand it.

Swallowing his discomfort, Trapper forced a laugh. “I promise I won’t get ya pregnant. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

Hawkeye, however, did not laugh. “See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you!”

“You’re bein’ pedantic…”

“We _talked_ about this…”

Abandoning his cereal and his paper with a weary sigh, Trapper made an attempt to grab his coat and bail out. “ _Yes_ , I _know_! How could I _forget_?”

Hawkeye blocked his path. “You want to go back to wearing rubbers again?”

Trapper scoffed. “Oh, don’t start that crap again! There ain’t no _point_ , Hawk. We’re both clean. Unless you started screwin’ somebody on the side…” It wasn’t an outright accusation – just an attempt to both lighten the mood and change the subject. He succeeded in neither.

“That’s not the _point_ and you _know_ it!”

“Okay, okay…” Taking a deep breath, Trapper laid a gentle hand on Hawkeye’s arm in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “I’m sorry. I forgot. It was a… ‘heat of the moment’ thing.” ‘ _There. Apology made. Can I go to work now?’_

Hawkeye shrugged him off. “Yeah. At least you _had_ a ‘moment’!”

“Okay, I _get_ it! I’m a selfish son-of-a-bitch an’ you’re mad because you didn’t get off!”

“ _No_ – I’m mad because every moment of intimacy we share has to revolve around _you_ and your _penis_! Everything ends when you get your rocks off, and all _I_ get is the oh-so-delightful post-coital clean-up!”

Trapper physically recoiled. “I _don’t_ wanna _know_!” Practically shoving Hawkeye out of the way, Trapper snatched his coat up from the rack and tugged it on over his work overalls. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know where you get off talkin’ about things like that! Some things ain’t exactly right for polite conversation y’know?”

“So _what_? Who cares? This is just you and me, in our apartment, talking about our sex life!”

“ _So_ , would it _kill_ ya to try an’ keep up _some_ sorta… I dunno… _allure_?”

“ _Allure_?” Hawkeye actually laughed in his face. “You’re seriously telling me that after seven years in a relationship I’m not _allowed_ to have an honest conversation with you about sex because it kills the ‘ _allure_ ’?”

“Talk all ya want! I just don’t need to know about the goddamn _aftermath_!”

“In _that_ case, make sure you _bag up_ your ‘aftermath’ and take it away with you!” His point made, whether Trapper wanted to hear it or not, Hawkeye turned and stalked back off to the bathroom, pausing only to yank the newspaper off the table as he went. It took Trapper’s abandoned cereal bowl with it, sending it skittering across the table. Trapper leapt forward to grab it, too late to stop the bowl tipping over but just in time to wind up with a wet trouser leg and a shoe full of milk. “Oh, _Jeez_!”

He glared up at Hawkeye, who, pausing to look back from the bathroom door, actually _laughed_.

With an angry grunt, Trapper flung the cereal bowl full-force across the room. It hit the wall, and shattered.

The look Hawkeye gave him was almost one of pity. “Feel better now?”

Trapper scowled. “Fuck you.”

Hawkeye shot him a snide look. “You already did. I think that’s where the trouble started.”

The bathroom door slammed behind him, and Trapper was left alone.

 

* * *

 

The shift dragged on. Hours of hauling a heavy broom up and down the vast factory floor had left Trapper with aching shoulders and sore palms. He hated this job. The lint made his eyes itch and his throat tickle, and the boredom was miserable. The only saving grace was Mrs Ferrelli, who was charming and lovely and thought Trapper was a brave soul recovering from a drink problem.

She also thought he was married.

Nonetheless, his face lit up when he saw her struggling through the double doors with a briefcase in one hand and her keys in the other. Any day when Mrs Ferrelli was in charge was a good day – her husband was a ratty little twerp who ran the business like something out of the last century, but Mrs Ferrelli made sure the workers got coffee at the end of their shift and asked how their day was. Sometimes, Trapper wondered how a smart, charming woman like her had landed herself such a weasel of a husband.

He caught the door for her as she battled her way through with her heavy bag, fumbling with the keys as she struggled to find the one for the office. “Morning, John!” she smiled at him cheerily, her glasses slightly crooked. Trapper had to resist the urge to reach out a finger and adjust them for her – flirting with the boss was a sure way to get fired. He kept his hands to himself.

“Mornin’ Mrs Ferrelli. Good to see ya. How’s things?”

“Oh, things are good,” his employer beamed as she unlocked her office. “Ricardo got up early and made me breakfast for Valentine’s Day. He is such a sweetheart!”

“Oh, good for him!” Trapper tried to keep his smile amiable. At least Ricardo could be a sweetheart when it came to his wife, if not his employees.

“And how about you? Your wife doing okay?”

Trapper froze. Why could he never quite get the hang of these questions without getting a cold chill, worrying that people would see right through him? His hands clasped tightly around his broom and he looked away. “Yeah… yeah, things are okay.”

Something in his demeanour must have clued her in, as Mrs Ferrelli paused in the doorway. “Oh. Oh dear. It’s like that, is it?”

Trapper stared at her. “What?”

“Had a fight with the missus?” Mrs Ferrelli gave him a sympathetic look.

Trapper gave a tight smile and tried not to wince. “Somethin’ like that…”

“Oh…” Squeezing his arm comfortingly, Mrs Ferrelli brushed past him into her office, allowing him to catch a whiff of her perfume. “Look, these things happen! You know, I forgot our tenth anniversary! Ricardo went all out an’ bought me a watch and flowers and chocolates, and I’d got him nothing! Poor guy. But look – just pick her up some flowers on your way home an’ tell her you’re sorry!”

Watching her unload her belongings from the doorway with growing discomfort, Trapper shifted uneasily. Hearing her talk about a marriage like that – a nice, normal, _acceptable_ marriage where the arguments were over forgotten gifts rather than the politics of their shared sexual identities and the grisly details of their sex life – made him feel all the more phoney for even having this conversation. “Yeah… that don’t exactly work on her.”

Mrs Ferrelli’s face fell a little. “Oh. Well, look… Why don’t you call her?”

“Uh…” Call Hawkeye? From _work_? In front of his _boss_? “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I insist! Look, you’re all done for the day, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“You can use my telephone. Call your wife, clear the air, get everything sorted out so you don’t have to come home to a cold shoulder. Come on!” She gestured to the smart, black Bakerlite on her desk. Trapper shuffled into the office, still clutching his broom.

“You know… I really can’t. She’s at work!”

“Where does she work?”

“Uh… she’s a waitress at a diner out near Avon Hill.”

“Oh, that’s perfect – she’ll have just finished up from breakfast. It’ll be nice and quiet.”

“I still don’t think…”

“Nobody’ll mind. There’ll be _no_ rush on – and nobody’s gonna mind if one of the ladies takes a few minutes out to take a call from her husband on Valentine’s Day.”

Trapper couldn’t even reply to that. Already Mrs Ferrelli was carefully taking his broom from him and ushering him towards the desk. Her gentle, guiding hand in the small of his back dictate his every mode. He didn’t know what to do! Refusal would make him look like he had something to hide! He was helpless, stuck in a headlong dive into exposure and ruin by the only employer he’d had who had made him feel like an actual human being!

Surrendering to fate, he sank into the chair. His hands were trembling when he picked up the phone, his palms sweaty.

“Y’know, I still don’t think this is a great idea. It’s kinda… personal.”

“Ah!” Mrs Ferrelli raised a finger. “I’ll leave you in peace. I’ll be… _just_ outside!” She pointed at the narrow oak door, then turned away, gathering a few papers from her intray while she waited.

Trapper exhaled slowly, never taking his eyes off her, and dialled.

“Back in a few minutes.” Mrs Ferrelli smiled at him broadly, and breezed out of the office.

A moment later, the door swung to again and she sailed back inside. Trapper nearly slammed the phone down again in a panic!

“Forgot my reading glasses!” Mrs Ferrelli laughed and tutted and shook her head as she rummaged for the tortoiseshell spectacles. At last she located them, under some other papers, on top of the blotter. “Sorry!” she cried out, waving a hand towards Trapper again. “Sorry!” And so, as quickly as she came, she disappeared. The door, however, stayed open. Trapper stared at it, beads of perspiration beginning to gather under his collar the door swayed almost gently on its hinge, as if taunting him.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang…

Trapper breathed a sigh of relief, and called out: “Nobody’s pickin’ u–”

He fell silent as the ringing stopped and a gruff voice at the other end greeted him – “Y’ello – Tony’s. What can I do you for?” – just as Mrs Ferrelli re-entered the office.

“What did you say, John?”

Trapper went cold, and he gestured to the phone. “Yeah… hi…” His heart raced. His eyes darted back and forth in panic. “I’m callin’ to speak to… uh…”

She was still only just outside, loitering in the doorway, waiting to see if his ‘wife’ would take his call, and smiling so goddamn sweetly, cheering him on, hoping for the best, blissfully unaware. ‘ _Just hang up… tell her to mind her own goddamn business_!’ A sharp ring of the factory buzzer broke the silence, and the silhouette of Mrs Ferrelli vanished from the window.

 ‘ _Oh, thank Christ_!’ Trapper turned his attention back to the phone, still shaking, still tense. The now irate Tony was barking angrily at him down the wire. “Sorry,” Trapper mumbled, his voice low, hideously aware that his employer was only just the other side of the open office door, signing for the mail. “I’m lookin’ for Benjamin Franklin Pierce – I gather he’s workin’ today.”

“ _Who_?”

Trapper cringed. “Benjamin Pierce!” he enunciated as loudly as he dared.

There was a snort from the other end of the line – one that suggested Hawkeye wasn’t their favourite employee. “Yeah, he’s here…” A pause, and then: “Hey, Benny! There’s some guy on the phone for ya!”

‘ _Benny_?’ Trapper winced at that. Nobody ever called Hawkeye by _any_ abbreviated form of his first name, except for his father. After a moment, there was a rattle, and a familiar voice picked up at the other end.

“Hello, you’ve reached Tony’s Diner. Benjamin Franklin Pierce speaking, can I help?”

That just made Trapper cringe even more. Not only was ‘Benny’ not Hawkeye’s name, but now the voice he was hearing wasn’t Hawkeye’s either. He sounded so… subservient!

“Hello?”

Hawkeye sounded agitated now, and, with one ear still turned towards the door, Trapper finally remembered how to speak. “Hiya, Hawk.”

There was an annoyed huff from the other end of the phone that made the phone crackle. “Oh, it’s _you_.”

“You were expectin’ somebody else?”

Another huff. “ _Yes_. I was expecting a call from one of my many lovers who I’ve been entertaining on the side in between waiting tables to help cover your child support payments.”

Trapper sighed, but didn’t rise to the bait. “Still mad at me, huh?”

“What do you _want_ , Trapper?” There was venom in Hawkeye’s voice.

Outside the office, Trapper could hear Mrs Ferrelli conversing with the mail man. He hoped she was in a chatty mood… “I uh… I called to apologise for bein’ such a selfish son-of-a-bitch this morning.” Silence. “I’m sorry.” Yet more silence.  Somewhere in the background, he could hear orders for food being yelled across a kitchen. “Hawk?”

On the other end of the line, Hawkeye, unseen by Trapper, gave an embarrassed laugh, leaned heavily against a refrigerator and ran a hand over his face. “Do you want to call me back so we can start this conversation again without me being a bad-tempered jerk?”

His tone said it all, and Trapper laughed, too. A comfortable silence descended, and each remained still and quiet for a moment, Trapper sitting patiently at his employer’s desk, Hawkeye leaning against the fryer in the late-morning lull, each painfully aware of the possibility of the conversation being overheard.

“Apology accepted,” Hawkeye replied at last. “And I’m sorry I spilled your cereal.”

“It’s okay, Hawk. It was an accident.”

“No… it really wasn’t.” Hawkeye sounded a little guilty – but not much. But Trapper couldn’t help but chuckle. “Look, I can’t talk long. I really am expecting another call.”

Trapper smirked. “Yeah, you said – one of your many lovers.”

Another laugh. Lowering his voice, Hawkeye turned his back to the kitchen, covering the mouth-piece. “I had a job interview yesterday morning and I gave them this number.”

“You lookin’ for another job? As well as the diner?”

“No. _Instead_ of.” Glancing over his shoulder, Hawkeye stretched the phone cord and tucked himself up a corner where nobody could here. “I hate this place. I hate the people. I hate listening to idle bigotry being exchanged over a cup of coffee and having to stand back and smile! I hate being treated like dirt in exchange for a lousy five per cent tip! And I hate the uniform…” He tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his nylon shirt.

“Aw, I like the uniform. Mint green brings out yer eyes.”

“My eyes are _blue_ , Romeo.”

“I said ‘brings out’ – not ‘matches’. It’s like… complementary colours or somethin’. I read it in a magazine.”

“Compliment all you want – I’m getting to the end of the week and I’m quitting.”

Trapper gave an exasperated sigh, his fingers clenching around the edge of the desk. This wasn’t the place for a serious conversation. Already he could hear the factory workers arriving for the morning shift, and Mrs Ferrelli would be back any minute. “Hawkeye, _no_!”

“I promise I’ll keep the uniform…”

“ _No_! We need the money! _Please_ don’t do this again!”

“This is why I didn’t tell you! I knew you’d get mad!”

“It ain’t about me bein’ mad! It’s about us bein’ _broke_ an’ you walkin’ away from every job you get after a few lousy weeks!”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I can’t work in a place where people have no _respect_ for one another.”

Trapper sighed. “You ain’t a _doctor_ anymore, Hawkeye. _Nobody_ respects people like us.”

“ _Everybody_ deserves respect – it doesn’t matter what their job is. Doctor, janitor, diner waiter…”

“Butcher, baker, candlestick-maker.”

The joke raised a wry chuckle from Hawkeye, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Look, I’d better get back. I’ll see you tonight.”

“You will. An’ I’ll make up for this mornin’, you can count on it.”

“I’ll wear my waiter costume…”

Trapper glanced up as Mrs Ferrelli returned to her office, clutching an armful of paperwork and envelopes. And then, all of a sudden, his heart was back in his mouth, and he couldn’t get Hawkeye off the phone fast enough. “Well, that’s great honey. You do that. I’ll see you later. Love you!”

“I love you t–” The phone went dead, and Hawkeye gave the receiver a curious look before replacing it and returning to his shift. As he stepped out of the kitchen and into the restaurant, Tony appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

“Who _was_ that?”

Calmly, Hawkeye held his head up and looked him right in the eye. “None of your business.”

It didn’t matter anymore. He was probably getting fired anyway.

 

* * *

 

A couple of hours later and Trapper was sat at the bar in one of his usual haunts. He had a few hours to kill before Hawkeye would be due home.

He also had, upon the advice of Mrs Ferrelli, a bunch of flowers he’d purchased from the store around the corner – a task which had proven much more taxing than he’d expected. He’d been quizzed on numerous aspects of his purchase – his ‘wife’s’ favourite flower, colour, scent – and, eventually settled on a neat arrangement of lupines and delphiniums in blue, white and purple. He hoped Hawkeye liked them.

He had declined the offer of the sales clerk to write a card in calligraphy to the tune of whatever he wanted to put, and was now poring over the task as he nursed his lunchtime Scotch.

“You in the dog-house, huh Mac?” The barman, one of many with whom Trapper was well-acquainted but trying to avoid getting too friendly with in case somebody started to see through his pretence, nodded towards the flowers on the stool beside him.

“Yup,” Trapper replied, not looking up from his card. “I think a little less than I was this morning, but… it pays to make sure.”

The barman nodded as he set about polishing a fresh batch of glasses. “Sheesh. Broads, huh?”

Trapper flinched. “Yeah, don’t I know it!” He laughed, hoping he didn’t sound nervous, and downed his drink. “Same again, please, pal.”

“You sure?”

Trapper stared at him, his brow furrowing in annoyance. “It’s the _weekend_! I’m celebratin’.”

Relenting, the barman picked up a glass and began measuring out Trapper’s Scotch of choice.

“Make it a double.”

“Whatever you say, Mac…”

Laying the last of his cash on the bar, Trapper finally raised his pen and scrawled in messy, tipsy, doctor’s handwriting on the card: ‘ _Hawkeye – sorry I’m such a jerk. Love, Trapper_.’

 

* * *

 

Hawkeye was due home around two-thirty. Trapper had intended to be waiting for him, but he’d realised _en route_ that he would, once again, be coming home reeking like a distillery. There was a public baths not far from the docks where the workers could freshen up on their way home, and Trapper had learned some time ago that it was well worth the price of a few cents so as to not incur the wrath of Hawkeye when he rolled home three hours late with whiskey on his breath. Not that he always remembered, but today was a good day to make the effort.

And so, freshly scrubbed and with a mouth tasting of toothpaste, Trapper bounded up the stairs of their apartment building, flowers in hand. The shower had sobered him up a tad and sharpened his mind, leaving him not so much drunk but buzzing with a pleasant tipsiness – not to mention romantic excitement. He reached the top floor of the building, shivering in the damp, draughty stairwell. His feet echoed on the iron walkway as he made his way towards the sorry little unit he and Hawkeye had called home for the past two years.

The middle aged woman who had recently moved in next door was wrestling with her shopping as Trapper walked by, and Trapper quickened his step so as to avoid being dragged into a conversation. Contact with the neighbours, he had learned some time ago, was to be avoided at all costs. Once they started talking, they started to _recognise_ , and once _that_ happened, it didn’t take long for them to realise that there were two men living in a one-bedroom apartment. Calls to the landlord or even the police often followed. The one thing this place had going for it was the high turnaround of neighbours. Most would move on, driven away by the cold and damp, before they took the time to complain that they were living next door to a couple of ‘deviants’, but Trapper wasn’t willing to take any chances.

He kept his head down, skirted around the woman and her bags, and quickened pace.

As he did, there was a rustle of shopping bags and an angry hiss.

“ _Filthy_!”

Trapper froze, his hand clenching around the flowers in his hand. He looked up, allowing himself to make eye contact with the stranger. He already knew how this conversation was going to go. It was too late to walk away.

Her face twisted into a sneer of disgust, she jabbed a finger at him. “I _heard_ you!” she spat. “That racket this morning! _Disgusting_! I knew what you two were as soon as I saw you! _Perverts_! That’s what you are!” With those words, she shot him one last glare, turned away, and hauled her shopping into her apartment like she couldn’t get away fast enough, leaving Trapper shaking in the hallway.

It wasn’t the first time they’d gotten comments, and it wouldn’t be the last, but somehow it cut Trapper to the quick. The thought of somebody _hearing_ him and Hawkeye during… _intimacy_ was too much! He felt _exposed_ , his deepest, shameful secret laid bare to the world!

He knew how it had happened. The bathroom window – the one he had to leave open during showers in a vain attempt to dispel the growing mildew problem in the bathroom – was right beside the bedroom in the neighbouring apartment. Trapper could kick himself! How could they be so careless?!

Staring at the now-closed-and-locked door, his heart rattling in his ribcage, he _wished_ he’d had some sort of witty comeback to the woman’s outburst. Hawkeye would have known what to say – Hawkeye would have stood there and tossed off some witty one-liner about his sexual prowess to demonstrate how little he cared, or concocted some elaborate cover story that got them both off the hook.

Trapper wasn’t that smart. He just stood shaking in the hallway, sweaty and anxious, wanting the ground to swallow him up.

‘ _Pull yourself together, you dumb son of a bitch_!’

The thought did little to help. In fact, it made him more furious. He _shouldn’t_ be feeling so upset just because a few sharp words from some old lady he barely knew! He shouldn’t be so damned _sensitive_!

But, in spite of his best efforts to swallow his feelings, he was shaking by the time he finally managed to make his way into the apartment.

“Hawkeye, we got a problem.”

“Trapper? Don’t get mad!”

Hawkeye leapt up from the couch as Trapper walked in, the door slamming behind him with a bang. Trapper, still dazed, stared at Hawkeye as if through a fog. “You already know?”

“Know what?”

Trapper shook his head. “Forget it. I’ll tell ya… later.” He gestured with the bunch of lupines. “You go first.”

“What are those?”

Trapper blinked at him. “What?”

“Those! That… explosion of floral obscenity you’re holding. It looks like my Aunt Martha’s front yard only more tacky.” He gestured to the flowers, grinning with barely-concealed hilarity.

“Oh, uh…” Trapper glanced at the flowers, shrugged, and held them out. “I got ‘em for ya – y’know, like a gift? An apology?”

Hawkeye’s expression was half delight, half hilarity. “You bought me _flowers_? We had a fight so you bought _flowers_? Where’d you get them? The married-couple cliché factory?”

Trapper’s arm dropped back to his side. “Hey! I was bein’ _nice_!

“No, don’t get me wrong – they’re _beautiful_ – it’s just… you’ve never done this before.”

“Yeah…” Trapper gave a shrug. “My boss told me I should buy ‘em for ya. She thinks I had a fight with my ‘wife’.” The roll of his eyes punctuated the word with air quotes. He held the flowers out once more. “Do ya want ‘em or not?”

“Well, if you insist…” Hawkeye shot him a smile and took the bouquet, burying his nose in the petals and glancing over in a way that was almost coquettish, and made Trapper melt, laugh and cringe all at once. “You _know_ I can never say no to lupines.”

They didn’t own a single vase, and so the flowers were housed in a large, empty mayonnaise jar that had been washed and used as a change bank. The coins they had saved up amounted to three dollars and fifty-one cents, which Hawkeye pocketed. With the flowers settled in several inches of water, Trapper steered the conversation somewhat reluctantly back towards its original trajectory.

“So, uh… you gonna tell me the thing you didn’t want me to get mad about?”

“Huh?” Hawkeye removed one of the longer lupines to trim the stem.

“When I came in – you were gonna say somethin’. You said ‘don’t get mad’. What ain’t I meant to get mad about?”

“Well, I’m not telling you unless you promise not to get mad.” This infuriating statement was accompanied with a playful smirk, which did little to placate Trapper’s temper.

“I ain’t promisin’ not to get mad if it’s somethin’ worth gettin’ mad about!”

“See – now you’re mad. I’m not telling.”

“ _Hawkeye_ …”

Sighing, Hawkeye abandoned his playful dodge. “I got fired,” he said softly, continuing his flower arranging.

Trapper groaned, shaking his head as he stared at his boots, quietly despairing. “What did ya do this time, Hawk?”

“Nothing!” Hawkeye’s face fell a little, and he bit his lip, his earlier good humour gone. He was rapidly losing the ability to fight the despair, or to hide behind dumb jokes and childish games. “That phone call… they heard me talking to you.”

“I _outed_ you?” Trapper’s eyes widened in horror. Suddenly, a bunch of flowers couldn’t cut it. If Hawkeye had done the same to him, he would be _devastated_!

“Not exactly,” Hawkeye mumbled toward the counter as he shortened another couple of stems. “They already had their suspicions. My discharge, my work history… my sense of humour.” He paused, clutching one delphinium between thumb and forefinger, and tossed his head. “Honey, do I come across as _effeminate_ to you?”

It was a vague attempt at humour, but Trapper didn’t laugh. “Hawkeye, ya can’t act like that in front of people!”

“Why not? I act like this in front of you, and _you’re_ people. Unless you’re about to whisk off your mask and reveal that you’re taking me back to your home planet to be your alien queen.”

Trapper rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. Hawkeye _really_ needed to lay off the pulp fiction! “ _Because_ you ain’t gonna hold down a job by _flauntin’_ yourself like that! Ya gotta live up to the pretence!”

Hawkeye shook his head and set about placing all the shortened flowers back in the jar with their companions. “I don’t do that anymore.”

Trapper’s blood ran cold. “You _what_?”

“I don’t _lie_. I know there are ways and I know it helps, but I’m not doing it. I go in, I show them my papers, I let them think whatever the hell they’re gonna think, and if they hire me then great. If they don’t, then _fuck them_. I’ve done everything I can tolerate in order to find work in this stinking city! I‘ve dropped my title, erased my education! I’ve worked my hands raw with manual labour, destroyed my sleep pattern with shifts that made my residency look like a nine-to-five walk in the park! I have stooped to minimum wage and lower, _humiliated_ myself in front of countless interviewers, and smiled through the insults of co-workers and customers alike, but I refuse to _lie_. I’ve _learned_ to live without my self-respect, but no job is worth cashing in my _principles_.”

“Are your _principles_ gonna pay our rent? Put food on our table? Gas in the car?”

“ _Trapper_!” Hawkeye’s voice was raised, but his heart wasn’t in this. He didn’t want to fight! He was exhausted, mentally and physically, and this just… wasn’t how he wanted to spend the evening. Turning, he faced Trapper, forcing a smile, doing his best to speak calmly. “The flowers were nice. Really nice. Joking aside, I’m touched. Seriously, you got me all warm and fuzzy. But you know what I would like? What I’d _really_ like? To get through the rest of today without being _yelled at_. So do you think you could manage that? For me? For Valentine’s Day? Please?”

And Trapper fell silent. There were other things he wanted to say, but…

It could wait. Instead, he mumbled another quiet apology and opened his arms to Hawkeye. Hawkeye came to him gladly, curling into his embrace, his arms slipping around Trapper’s shoulders as his fingers caressed the hair on the nape of his neck.

“Your hair is wet.” Hawkeye looked at him curiously. “You took a shower before you came home?”

The question sounded like a little more than ide curiosity, a little less than an accusation.

Trapper’s pulse quickened a little. He hoped Hawkeye wouldn’t notice. “Work gets a little physical, y’know.”

“Uh huh… you brushed your teeth, too?”

Trapper winced. He knew Hawkeye was onto him…  “I wanted to freshen up for ya.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Hawkeye’s voice betrayed more than a hint of distrust, but it was outweighed in the end by resignation. He didn’t have it in him to fight any more. And so, instead, he just stood there in their tiny kitchen, allowing himself to be held by a man he no longer truly trusted; a man who barely understood him half the time; a man who bought him flowers rather than listening, and who hid his drinking with midday showers and the deceptive aroma of spearmint.

But, for now, in the rare silence, denial was a nice place to be. He rested his head on Trapper’s shoulder, gazing at the delphiniums and lupines that sat in the jar on the counter. They really were quite beautiful…

Any and all arguments were set aside for the evening. Trapper lit the fire, in spite of the determined agreement they’d made to get by without heat from the beginning of February so they could save up to move. The flowers were moved from the kitchen to the coffee table, flanked with the candles they used to light the place in the evenings to save on electric. It was actually almost _romantic_ , and Hawkeye tugged off his shoes and socks so he could drape his legs across Trapper’s lap as they sprawled together on the couch. The usual Saturday night light-entertainment crap was starting up, and Trapper’s little TV sportingly attempted to display it with minimal crackling.

“Rub my feet?” Hawkeye gave his toes a wiggle.

Trapper pulled a face. “Your feet smell disgusting.”

“Of course they do – they’ve been holding me up all day! Come on – I’m asking you to _rub_ them, not _lick_ them!”

Foot-rubs were really more Hawkeye’s thing, but Trapper forced himself to grasp one bony appendage and gently start applying what he hoped was a pleasant level of pressure to Hawkeye’s aching arches.

Clearly, it worked. Hawkeye sighed, stretched, and then groaned. “Ohh, that’s perfect!”

And suddenly, Trapper was on edge all over again. If the woman next door had heard them this morning, could she hear _this_ now? How thick were the walls? The doors? Could one foot-rub be the final straw between them and eviction?

“Hey?”

“Huh?” Trapper glanced at Hawkeye, dragged back to reality as he tried to work out exactly how far they were from the neighbour’s living room, and how likely Hawkeye’s vocal appreciation was likely to travel.

“You stopped.”

“Sorry.”

He resumed his task, a little less heartily this time. As long as Hawkeye was _quiet_ , it wasn’t too bad. Although any further activities may compromise their secrecy, and their safety, and, if there _were_ any plans to pick up where they left off this morning, he would have to find a way to get Hawkeye out of this cosy little spot and into the bedroom. Trapper’s mind raced for a solution…

“Are we gonna have sex again tonight?”

The question, quite out of the blue, took Hawkeye by surprise. His head raised from the sofa and he shot Trapper the most curious of looks. “ _Oh_ , gee, well if you’re gonna start turning on the charm like _that_ , I don’t think I’ll be able to help myself! Please, take me! I can’t resist such a loquacious proposition!”

Trapper hadn’t meant to be blunt. The question just sort of… slipped out as he was trying to ascertain whether or not the bedroom would, in fact, be the most ‘soundproof’ location in the event of Hawkeye getting carried away. “Sorry,” he found himself saying for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “I just thought… if we were gonna, we should probably head for the bedroom. _If_ we _did_ , that is.”

Hawkeye didn’t query this particularly odd line of conversation. Instead, he nestled deeper into the couch cushions. “Did you buy rubbers along with the flowers when you went shopping earlier?”

“No….”

“Then we’re _not_ having sex.”

Hawkeye spoke like he was drawing a line in the sand, but, as Trapper massaged his slender toes, he tentatively tried a different angle. “I just thought… after this mornin’, you might want me to… make it up to ya.” He smiled, his hand wandering a little further up Hawkeye’s leg.

With an irritated huff, Hawkeye dragged his attention away from the TV once more. “I’m really not in the mood! I’m tired and I’m upset and I’m aching, and, frankly, I don’t think getting my rocks off several hours late is going to be the thing that improves my day!”

Trapper sank a little deeper into the couch, suitably cowed, continuing to prod half-heartedly at Hawkeye’s arches.

“Sorry,” Hawkeye added. His tone was gentler now, his expression less severe. “It’s nothing personal. I just… I’m enjoying this, what we’re doing right now. Can we just do this? This is different. This is… nice.”

‘ _Yeah… nice_.’ Trapper wrinkled his nose as he continued to gingerly massage Hawkeye’s feet. He shouldn’t be so put off by this – Hawkeye rubbed his feet all the time!

They fell into a tranquil silence, their worries maybe not solved but at least shelved for now. Maybe Hawkeye was right… it was nice. It was relaxed and tranquil, and maybe even a little romantic.

It lasted for all of three minutes.

The loud, intimidating knock on the door made Hawkeye’s head turn and Trapper’s heart stop.

“What the…?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Hey, open up!”

Another series of knocks soon followed, and Hawkeye reluctantly scrambled into an upright position. Burying his head in his hands, Trapper curled in on himself. He’d almost forgotten! How could he have _forgotten_? Oh well… denial had been nice while it lasted.

“Trapper?”

Trapper flinched as the banging on the door increased in volume, and the angry voice on the other side bellowed through the door once more. “Come on, I know you’re in there!”

Wetting his lips anxiously, Trapper tried to block it out, and turned to Hawkeye to explain. “The old broad next door.”

“Oh…”

“She heard us this mornin’…” He felt the stab of shame even as he said it, and yet Hawkeye, just as he predicted, merely shrugged.

Hawkeye’s expression hardened into an angry glare. “Next time I’ll charge her for tickets.”

The banging continued, continuous now, the voice on the other side growing more and more aggressive, its utterances peppered with more and more colourful language. Reluctantly, Trapper rose from the couch. He knew what was coming. He knew that, with the sitting room bedecked with candles and a bunch of flowers and the soft glow of the fire, there was no passing themselves off as anything other than what they were. On this occasion, at least, Trapper had no other choice than to subscribe to Hawkeye’s chosen tactic of complete and unabashed honesty.

It wasn’t a conversation he would relish.

He opened the door.

As it turned out, it was swift, to the point, and deeply unpleasant. The abuse that had been shouted through the door was now repeated to Trapper’s face once the supervisor gained entry, and yelled across the room at Hawkeye for a good measure. Hawkeye, to his credit, merely lounged back in his seat, propped his bare feet up on the coffee table, smiling sweetly as the supervisor screamed at him.

“That’s _very_ nice of you to say so,” Hawkeye smarmed in response to the torrent, as soon as he could get a word in edgeways. “I do _love_ a man who isn’t afraid to express how he feels.”

The super flushed a very curious shade of mauve, and, with one last string of expletives, departed, slamming the door behind him, leaving Trapper clutching an eviction notice in his shaking fist, a haze of fury slowly descending across his field of vision, blinding him.

“Well, _he_ was nice!” Hawkeye intoned, making himself comfortable again. “We should have him back for dinner sometime.” His tone was calm, with the slightest undercurrent of annoyance, a look of defiant pride on his face.

Trapper stared at him, almost stunned. He should be used to this from Hawkeye, and yet… how could he _act_ like that? How could he look someone like that right in the eye and crack jokes? Somebody who had such _power_ over them? How could he be so _blatant_ , so bold? Trapper just wanted the ground to swallow him up! Or he wanted to punch something! Or both! He just wanted the entire rotten world to leave him the hell alone, for Hawkeye to shut his smug mouth, and for all the abuse and the name-calling and the _shame_ to just _stop_!

It wouldn’t stop. Hawkeye was still talking, but, to Trapper it was just background noise. Again, his world shrank to nothing but the blackness behind his eyelids and a constant, echoing litany: ‘ _Stop it, stop it, stop it_ …’ But still, the supervisor’s words penetrated his mental cocoon, as he ran them over and over…

Desperate, furious, and at the brink of tears, he turned on his heel, snatching the nearest object to his trembling fist, and flung it, full force, against the apartment door. It shattered, and a moment later, the door was awash with water and shards of broken glass, and a colourful, almost beautiful, shower of lupines and delphiniums.

A few seconds later, and Trapper found himself standing in the living room, his heart pounding, breath panting. His hands were still clenched in trembling fists at his sides, but at least the noise in his head was gone. His thoughts cleared, his temper sated, he began, at last, to catch his breath.

He lifted his head. “Guess we’d better go pack.” The words were spoken with just the vaguest hint of a sneer. Now, he was all business.

But, as Trapper strode off to fetch the cases from the bedroom closet, it was Hawkeye who was trembling. Having sat proudly with his head high as the supervisor had hurled his abuse, Hawkeye now sat in silence, curled in on himself, sucking his thumb like a child, as he stared across the room at a shattered mayonnaise jar and a heap of ruined flowers that he hadn’t even known he’d wanted.


	5. FIVE...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains strong sexual content depicting unhealthy relationship dynamics. May prove distressing.

** November 1959 **

The apartment was silent, but it was not an easy silence. Mornings in the Pierce-McIntyre residence had, over recent months, become a ritual of tension. Each party had always brought his own expectations to the breakfast table, and lately neither, it seemed, could be met.

For Trapper, Sunday mornings were supposed to be a time for family; for catching up on the events of the week.

Well, he already _knew_ the events of Hawkeye’s week. Hawkeye, from what he could tell, did very little. Still unemployed, still insisting on ‘honesty’ when dealing with employers, and still getting nowhere.

There were times – all too frequent times – when Hawkeye would talk incessantly as soon as Trapper returned home in the evenings, and then continue in the mornings before he left. Today, he was quiet, presumably gathering more material for his next one-man show. This much was a mercy, albeit a small one. But what Trapper wouldn’t have given to have spent a Sunday morning quietly discussing middle school mathematics homework, or hearing all about a spelling bee, as his youngest daughter’s voice whistled through the gap in her front teeth!

It was two years to the day since Trapper had heard his children’s voices. Kathy would be thirteen now – the same age Becky was on the day Trapper had finally been cut out of her life – and that gap had probably closed up long ago. And Becky… Becky would be turning fifteen.

Today, in the strange quiet that had descended upon their day, he sat at the coffee table and scoured the Sunday papers for a mention of his eldest’s name. A fifteenth birthday warranted a newspaper notice, didn’t it? Behind him, Hawkeye was rattling about in the kitchenette with a whisk in one hand, and a jug of pancake batter in the other.

It was a scene which, a few years ago, Trapper would almost have described as domestic bliss: Hawkeye preparing breakfast, him reading the paper. Even their apartment was nice, as cheap apartments went. The bedrooms were pokey, the bathroom a windowless cube, but the living space and adjoining kitchenette were a spacious but cosy retreat from the perils of the outside world, bedecked in warm pine panelling and a comfortable (if rather ugly) yellow couch. But, as Trapper perched himself on the edge of that couch, poring over the announcements page, twitching with irritation at every slight rattle from the kitchen, it felt anything but blissful.

Hawkeye watched him, with growing unease. He hadn’t moved for several minutes now, and the tension was palpable. At last, Hawkeye could bear the silence no longer, and, in a vain attempt to break it, began a running commentary to the food preparation process.

“My aunt Martha used to make the best pancakes! She lived just out of town, in Searsport. Searsport is beautiful, by the way. We should stop by some time! Not to visit Aunt Martha – she’d probably have a coronary over us – but just to see the sights. Drive down to Arcadia or something. Anyway, we all used to go round every couple of weeks, and it was the only time you’d ever see all the kids sitting up at the table on time! Sunday best clothes on, faces scrubbed, knives and forks in hand, just _waiting_ for one of Aunt Martha’s perfect breakfast pancakes!”

Trapper grunted in response. Had he looked up – which he hadn’t – he would have seen the shudder of discomfort that his surliness elicited. But, with his head buried in the paper, he did not.

Hawkeye pressed on: “They were beautiful! Little works of art! She had this _tiny_ little frying pan just for pancakes, and she’d turn them out, one after the other, and they were just _perfect_. Perfectly round, and even, and orange! Every single one! Like sunshine on a plate! _Beautiful_!”

Trapper scowled and turned a page. “Is that right?”

Hawkeye had his own expectation of Sunday mornings: stacks of light, fluffy pancakes, a lot of coffee, and lively conversation – and he was very particular about the ingredients of the former: “Shoot, we’re out of buttermilk.” He set the whisk and the bowl aside, slopping flour down his shirt. “I’m gonna run down to the convenience store.”

Trapper’s stomach growled in objection. “Use the regular stuff, Hawk.”

“But they don’t come out _fluffy_ if you don’t use buttermilk.”

His hackles rose, but Trapper didn’t. His eyes remained fixed on the newspaper. “So? We’ll have ‘em French style. If it’s good enough for kissin’, an’ good enough for toast, it’s good enough for pancakes.”

“It’s just two minutes down the street!”

The newspaper hit the crockery. “Goddamnit, Hawk! You woke me up at a quarter to nine by singin’ in the shower, an’ you promised me breakfast! It’s now at gone ten, an’ I ain’t seen a sniff of even a lousy cup o’ coffee! I ain’t sittin’ here waitin’ for you to fanny about in the convenience store when you could just fix us some goddamn _crepes_ an’ get on with it!” He waved his hands dismissively and turned back to his paper.

Hawkeye relented and added regular milk. He carried on mixing without another word. A couple of minutes later, he joined Trapper on the couch, sitting quietly beside him.

“I’m leaving it to settle,” he said by way of explanation for his presence.

He got no response.

“They’re better if you let it settle.” Hawkeye shifted a little, leaning closer and resting his hand gently on Trapper’s knee. “Hey? You know what I thought might be nice today? If we went out to lunch somewhere. We’ve got a little money to spare, and I thought…”

Trapper wrinkled his nose and turned the page. “Where did ya have in mind?”

Fidgeting, Hawkeye shifted back to the corner and crossed his legs, leaning away from Trapper. “Nowhere in particular.”

“Right.” Trapper nodded and continued to scan the tiny newsprint. “Well, you sit there nice an’ quiet, an’ think up some place we can go where the waitresses won’t avoid our table, an’ the clientele won’t give us dirty looks between mouthfuls, an’ _then_ we’ll make dinner plans.”

There was no response. Hawkeye’s shoulders sagged just a little and he suddenly decided to take great interest in the weave of the upholstery on the arm of the couch. There they sat, each in his own little world, Hawkeye picking at the fraying fibres, Trapper poring over the paper. At last, Hawkeye spoke again: “I’m _trying_ , okay?”

It was supposed to be an appeal for Trapper to let him in, but a little too much bottled up anger gave his words an unfriendly edge, his voice just a little too forceful. He regretted it immediately.

Trapper turned a page of his paper, continuing to read, and then, his words barely mumbled under his breath, he replied: “Damned _right_ you are…”

The jab hurt more than it should have. “Fine! Well, _screw you_ , then!” He stormed back to the kitchen, yanked off his apron, flinging it onto the couch with enough force to create a satisfying _smack_. “Fix your own goddamned breakfast!”

“I think I will!” The newspaper was balled up and tossed across the table. Trapper’s ashtray – which Hawkeye had been refusing to empty for days – skittered off the surface and upended itself on the rug. Trapper’s knee hit the table as he threw himself to his feet. “ _Ah_! _Shit_!” He kicked the coffee table and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“ _Out_!”

“ _Fine_! Go! Don’t let me stop you!”

“I won’t!”

“Go on! Get outta here!”

Snatching up his coat, Trapper limped over to the door. There was a clatter from the kitchen as Hawkeye threw the whisk across the room, and Trapper turned to see him leaning heavily on the kitchen counter, staring into the sink, his eyes closed, his head downturned. He made a pitiful sight, but in the midst of his frustration, Trapper couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for him. Why didn’t Hawkeye _get_ it? Did he not understand how hard it was just to get through the day? Had he even _noticed_ the calendar?

He hesitated at the door, his coat still clutched in one trembling hand. “Ya _do know_ what day it is, right?”

The question came out like an angry demand. Hawkeye’s head shot up. “Of _course_ I do! How could I forget? Did you think I’m _that_ selfish?! I did all this for _you_!”

Trapper gave a disdainful sniff and shook his head. “No you didn’t. You did it for _you_ – so you could kid yourself you’re helpin’, an’ try an’ make _yourself_ feel better!”

“So tell me what to do! I feel like I’m groping around in the dark here! How can I help?” He wasn’t even angry now – he was desperate, standing in the kitchen with his eyes wide and his arms outstretched, palms upward in a helpless gesture of imploring despair.

Trapper stared at him, at a loss for anything to say. Sadly, he shook his head. “There ain’t nothin’ you can do – so back the hell off, an’ quit tryin’.” He tugged the door open and turned to leave. “You _helpin’_ is what got me into this mess.”

The words were little more than a grumble, spoken quietly as he left, slamming the door behind.

But not quiet enough.

Hawkeye recoiled as if someone had just punched him. Folding in on himself, he slumped over the kitchen counter once more, his hands shaking, his breath forced. How could Trapper _say_ something like that? Did he even _mean_ it? Two years after the fact, was he finally turning round and telling Hawkeye that, yes, it _was_ all his fault?

‘ _At least that’s one thing we can agree on_ …’

His eyes stinging, Hawkeye tried desperately to push the guilt from his mind. It didn’t work. His hands were shaking as he picked up the mixing bowl of pancake batter and upended the lot into the kitchen sink. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry anymore.

 

* * *

 

The sun had set long ago. The Boston rush hour outside the window had quietened to a dull roar. Hawkeye had given up on sitting up waiting for Trapper, and had retired to bed to wait for him while staring at the ceiling instead. The thin curtain hanging in the bedroom did little to keep out the light pollution, and the badly fitted window did practically nothing to retain the heat. Hawkeye shivered a little – he hated sleeping in pyjamas, but his usual winter sleepwear of that day’s shorts and t-shirt were hopelessly inefficient without the added warmth of Trapper’s body heat.

Leaning down to the foot of the bed, Hawkeye snagged the tartan blanket from around his ankles and pulled it around himself, curling up into a foetal position and staring anxiously at the orange glow of the city through the moth-eaten curtain.

Somewhere out in the sprawling urban labyrinth beyond the pane, a clock chimed midnight.

Hawkeye blinked and buried his face in his pillow.

The whole day had been sheer hell. Sometime around five, Hawkeye had started to get pissed off: it was one thing to leave the house for a few hours after a row – Trapper had done that before – but he’d never been gone this long. And then, as yet more hours passed, that anger had faded, leaving nothing but a fearful unease in its wake.

Time ticked on. For the fifth time that night, he reached over for his alarm clock. It was an elaborate clock-radio contraption his father had bought him for his birthday. A switch on the top illuminated the quirky boomerang-shaped face perfectly, and told him it was now four minutes past twelve.

He was just slumping back onto the mattress when the sound of a key in the lock sent a jolt through him like he’d been electrocuted. His instinct was to throw back the blankets and dash through to the living room to Trapper at once – be it to hug him or to scream at him, he wasn’t too sure which – but he knew better. Trapper’s bad moods were slow burners, and if he hadn’t gotten it out of his system by now, then anything Hawkeye said or did might be throwing oil on the fire all over again. So, he stayed put, and he listened.

The front door slammed. Keys were tossed onto the table, a coat onto the couch, and heavy, slightly unsteady footsteps began to make their way through to the bedroom. The door opened. Closed again. More footsteps. Then, the mattress on Hawkeye’s side sank as Trapper lowered himself onto it beside Hawkeye’s legs. Hawkeye looked up.

They sat in silence, Hawkeye unsure of what to say, Trapper either equally hesitant, or too intoxicated to speak. He smelt like a distillery, and Hawkeye wasn’t even surprised. Some part of him was angry that Trapper had gone and thrown their money away in some bar again, but he had been away so long, anger had turned to concern, and that angry part of him was overruled by the part that just wanted desperately to kiss and make up. Maybe he was mellowing in his old age? Maybe part of being in a long term relationship meant forgiving more and yelling less? Or maybe he was just too tired; too exhausted by the constant cycle of fighting and just wanted to get to the part where they made up so he could stop feeling so goddamned lousy, at least until the next time. Either way, whatever the case was, Hawkeye couldn’t deny that the fight had gone out of him. The side that always loved to argue the point, to stand on his soap box and shout, to defend himself and his choices until the sun came up, just didn’t have that will to keep going.

The silence stretched on. Trapper simply sat, his face shrouded in the darkness, silhouetted against the backdrop of hazy orange light pollution. Tearful, exhausted, and desperate for that beacon of hope, Hawkeye reached out for him.

“Trapper?”

At last, Trapper moved, shifting forward, his movements slow and unsteady. But there was no aggression there. Hawkeye’s entire body seemed to sag with relief as Trapper’s arms wrapped around him. Trapper’s breath reeked of liquor, and his clothes were cold and wet. But Hawkeye didn’t care. He had Trapper back in his arms. The fear that had been festering all day – fear of losing him, fear that he might not come home, or fear that he would return just as angry as before – began to fade. It was a fear that got a little more acute with every row, and those were growing in frequency at an alarming rate.

No other words were spoken – neither one of them could quite trust himself to speak without the argument flaring up again. And so, Hawkeye merely shifted a little to make room for Trapper on the bed, and Trapper took the offered space, still fully clothed, still shod, and damp from the wet weather.

There they lay, Hawkeye with his head tucked beneath Trapper’s chin as he always did, basking in the calm after the storm. Silence had descended one more. More and more, it seemed, the only time they seemed able to get along was when neither one of them spoke. The thought made Hawkeye’s eyes sting, and he looked up at Trapper, longing for a few words of reassurance.

“Trap?”

No reply was forthcoming. In need of comfort, Hawkeye lifted his head and pressed a soft, appealing kiss to Trapper’s lips. The kiss was cold, in more ways than one. Trapper was half asleep already, his lips were chill from the harsh autumnal weather, and his body already succumbing to sleep and drink. He didn’t respond in kind to Hawkeye’s affections. Hawkeye kissed him again, longer this time, more tender, and this time, Trapper stirred a little, and sighed. The sound offered the tiniest hint of reassurance, and Hawkeye almost sobbed as he buried his face in the crook of Trapper’s neck once more. It was all the comfort he could get. He didn’t trust himself to speak, and so as long as he occupied his mouth with kissing, then he was less likely to wind up inserting his foot in it.

And yet still, Trapper did not kiss him back.

Hawkeye hesitated. Trapper’s face was unreadable in the darkness, his eyes glazed and foggy with drink. Hoping to coax a response from him, Hawkeye wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer.

It worked – perhaps a little too well. The intoxicating combination of warm body contact and whatever he’d been drinking was too much for Trapper to resist. For all his jokes about how insatiable Hawkeye was, that fire had unmistakeably dwindled these past two years, and Hawkeye’s once infamous libido was most definitely dead in the water. But, on this occasion, some part of him sensed that this was the reconciliation he needed and for the first time in months, he felt inclined to respond in kind. Maybe it wasn’t quite what he wanted. Maybe it wasn’t the tender kiss and the whispered apology he was craving, or the reassurance that the harsh words spoken that morning were only said in anger, but if make-up sex was all he was going to get, then…

It would do.

It was rushed and it was clumsy. Trapper heaved himself off him only to shrug off his jacket and kick his shoes off. Hawkeye made an attempt at removing his shirt and tie for him, but Trapper pushed his hands away. Hawkeye fell still, and rolled acquiescently onto his stomach, pillowing his head on his arms. He heard the drawer in the nightstand go, half expecting a mumbled request that he ‘do the honours’, as always, but drink, it seemed, had done away with Trapper’s usual inhibitions.

He caught Hawkeye by surprise. His touch was rough, and his technique non-existent. Half the lubricant ended up down Hawkeye’s legs or smeared into the bedsheets. The tube was abandoned on the bed, the cap lost in the blankets indefinitely. Hawkeye didn’t bother trying to help: he just pressed his cheek to the pillow, closed his eyes, and tried not to comment on Trapper’s lacklustre attempt at foreplay. He shouldn’t expect miracles – Trapper didn’t do this often, and he wasn’t about to discourage him with criticism. Trapper’s touch, no matter how clumsy, was always a welcome change.

The first thrust caught him by surprise, too hasty, too rough. He didn’t say anything about that either. To complain might only stir up yet another row, and he couldn’t face that. If this was Trapper’s way of making up to him, then he would at least be grateful of that.

And so, Hawkeye was silent. Completely so. There had been a time when not even the threat of discovery had been enough to keep him quiet during lovemaking, but this time he didn’t utter a sound. It wasn’t the first time, and it wasn’t even difficult. He just… wasn’t feeling it. There was an odd kind of comfort to be found in sex, even mediocre sex, but that was all. On some level, this was something he needed, and, it seemed, this was what Trapper needed right now, too…

He braced himself on his elbows, trying to hold himself steady. It was no easy task – Trapper was erratic, grunting and cursing. What little pleasure Hawkeye could get was a welcome distraction from the discomfort of Trapper’s fingers digging into his hips, but little more. Trapper sought his own pleasure in ignorant bliss; Hawkeye stared at the pattern on the wallpaper.

Still, he stayed silent. The bed shook and rattled beneath him. His head hit the wall as he lost his balance and had to brace himself against the headboard. He actually found himself willing Trapper to finish, willing it to be over and done with.

‘ _Stop the ride. I want to get off_.’ He actually laughed. Trapper didn’t seem to notice.

At last, Trapper rolled off him, and collapsed in a sweaty heap, leaving Hawkeye shivering with cold at his absence, and, feeling unpleasantly sore, Hawkeye shifted back into his usual spot, his arms wrapping around himself to rub away the goosebumps.

Still, neither one of them said a word. In the darkness, Hawkeye fumbled for his boxer shorts and tugged them on. Beside him, Trapper lay staring at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, his slacks still gathered around his knees.

Hawkeye watched him, searching for any hint of emotion. But there was none.

His mind went over and over the events of the last few minutes, feeling more and more uneasy. He lay perfectly still, staring at Trapper with growing concern. Had they actually made up? Was the fight over, or was he just stewing? There was no indication from Trapper either way, the more Hawkeye thought on it, the less sure he felt, and the more he felt he was being punished. Something, he realised, was very wrong. Sure, Trapper wasn’t the most inventive lover at the best of times, and maybe they’d rushed things before, but…

“Are you mad at me?”

The question escaped him before he could find a way of phrasing it any better, but, exhausted as he was, he didn’t think he could make any attempt at his usual level of articulation.

Beside him, Trapper stirred a little from the state of semi-consciousness he seemed to be drifting into. His brow knitted together for a moment. “Mad? What makes ya think I’m mad atcha? I fucked ya, didn’t I?”

And that was that. That was the only reassurance he was going to get. Trapper’s head hit the pillow again.

“Right…” Hawkeye looked away. They had, apparently, made up. Nothing more to be said.

And so, he just lay there, trying to decipher the odd, uncomfortable feeling in his gut. On some level, it felt so irrational! Trapper wasn’t mad… It was just… bad sex. He was upset, Trapper was drunk, these things happened. So _what_ if they’d had a bad night? Why did it feel so personal? Why did he feel like he was being _punished_?

But the more he dwelled on it – the bungled foreplay, the unceremonious rush headlong towards intercourse, Trapper’s refusal to touch him in any way beyond what was necessary, the total neglect of Hawkeye’s pleasure and determined focus upon his own – the more he realised that none of it was anything new.

It hit him like a bucket of ice water. He couldn’t remember when he’d first noticed it, or when it had first started to bother him. It was just like a cancer that had started off as a simple blemish, barely noticeable, an inconvenient stain on an otherwise satisfying relationship. But somewhere along the way, over the last year or two, it had spread, growing into a festering, malignant mass that was too big to be ignored, poisoning their relationship with its creeping toxicity. The thought made Hawkeye laugh bitterly. ‘ _Please help me doc, my sex life has a tumour_.’

Irritated, he glanced at Trapper, who was now dozing at his side, peaceful but debauched, half dressed and sticky, and not particularly attractive in his dishevelled state. Hawkeye baulked. What he wouldn’t give for a little sensuality in his life! Trapper’s hot and heavy approach used to have a delicious passion to it, but now it just seemed… cold. Hawkeye had half a mind to wake up him and demand a little reciprocation, but his heart wasn’t even in it, and Trapper was too drunk anyway. Did it really matter that much? Besides, he might feel differently in the morning. With a snort of annoyance, he rolled off the bed, groped blindly for his robe, and pulled it on, shuffling towards the door.

“Hey? Where ya goin’?” Trapper’s slurred query drifted out of the darkness.

Hawkeye hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, unsure of how explicit to be with his answer. “To take a shower,” he said at last. His voice sounded as flat as his mood.

Trapper made no reply, and Hawkeye moved through to the bathroom to cleanse himself of whatever it was that had just passed between them. By the time he returned to take his place somewhat reluctantly in the bed beside him, Trapper was snoring contentedly in the tangled mess of their bedsheets.


	6. And one time they didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, following the darker themes of this particular arc, this chapter contains scenes which may cause distress.

** April, 1960 **

****

“ _What a difference a day makes… twenty four little hours_!” Hawkeye ran a comb through his hair one last time before winking at his reflection. The moisture of the Bryll cream went some of the way to disguising the greys, which were now growing in numbers having apparently gotten some sort of memo around the time of his fortieth birthday.

They weren’t the only thing growing. He’d had to suck his midriff in to do up his suit trousers that morning, having had no reason to wear them in the past few years. How was it that a person could spend half their adult life with barely enough to eat, and yet still wind up with a middle-age spread as soon as they hit forty? It just wasn’t fair.

But it would take more than that to get him down today. “ _Brought the sun and the flowers… where there used to be rain_!” He straightened his tie, smoothed his shirt, and picked up the bottle of cologne he’d had for his birthday, splashing a little on sparingly.

The man responsible for that gift was just starting to awaken, nursing a hangover, and watching Hawkeye’s ablutions with growing irritation. “Somebody’s in a _chipper_ mood.”

Hawkeye’s delight faltered slightly at the sound of Trapper’s voice, but, determined not to start the day on a bad foot, he merely smiled into the mirror as he adjusted his cuffs. “Chipper? I’m _beyond_ chipper. I’m _ecstatic_! Clearly one of us has to be – _you_ , meanwhile, seem to be having a sour puss. What’s up with you?” ‘ _Like I didn’t know._ ’

Trapper thought on it. There was a _lot_ he had to be unhappy about. While Hawkeye was about to go and live it up in the medical field again, _he_ was working as a janitor! Not to mention the fact that Hawkeye’s latest job started on Good Friday, thus leaving Trapper alone with his thoughts for the whole of Easter weekend, and Trapper's thoughts never made for good company at the best of times. Then there was his hangover, which never left him in the greatest of moods. There was the matter of his pounding headache, too, but he kept quiet about that, having learned that Hawkeye’s sympathy was wearing thin as far as his self-inflicted woes were concerned. At last, he gave his response, mulling it over and mumbling to himself. “I ain’t got a whole lot to be chipper about! A four day weekend, all on my lonesome, while you’re livin’ it up in a fancy-ass clinic in the city!” He looked away and scowled. “Louise’ll be gettin’ the girls ready to visit ‘er parents around about now...”

Pausing in his routine, Hawkeye sighed, turned, and leaned closer to pat Trapper’s hand gently. “Yeah, I know.”

Cringing at the patronising gesture, Trapper pulled his hand away.

Hawkeye withdrew, realising once again that his attempts at sympathy did little to help. “What do you want? You want me to call in? Stay with you over the weekend? Would that _help_?” It was a futile question. Hawkeye had long since come to terms with the idea that _nothing_ he did helped, and the only comfort Trapper was interested in lay in a bottle of liquor.

Trapper eyed him for a moment through the bleariness of his mental fog. “Nah. You go have _fun_ playin’ doctor. I know where _you’d_ rather be. You’ve been laughin’ and singin’ over this job all week.”

His eyes widening, Hawkeye found himself, once again, being drawn into an argument. He didn’t even bother trying to change the subject. It seemed no matter what he said, no matter what he did, everything attracted Trapper’s ire. So… to hell with it! He was through with trying to keep the peace! “Aren’t I allowed to be _happy_?! The one piece of good luck that’s come my way in _eight years_! Do you have any idea how exciting this is? How much I’ve _missed this_! Real hospital work in a real hospital! Not just wheeling gurneys and emptying bedpans, but actual doctor-type stuff!”

Trapper snorted, irritated by Hawkeye’s selfishness. “Is _that_ what you’re doin’? An’ what’s your actual doctor-type job title, might I ask?”

“Yeah, well…” Hawkeye gave a shrug. “Quentin wasn’t too specific on that. I think there’s some red tape or something, like he can’t put me down in writing as being on the medical staff without going through background checks, so I’m probably… _officially_ … clerical or something. Like a medical secretary with more medicine than secretariation.”

“Or a PA with a white coat.”

Hawkeye bristled. “ _Whatever_ , you know. I’m just relieved that I finally found a contact in this damned city who _understood_ and was generous enough to help me out!”

Trapper scowled. “Right. Outta the goodness of ‘is heart.”

“ _Right_. _And_ because he thinks it’s a _crime_ that my talents are going to waste! Quentin McCauley is a great doctor, and also runs his own department in a small but _very_ respectable hospital. He’s taking a _risk_ hiring me, you know? A risk he’s clearly decided is worthwhile. That’s one heck of a compliment! Would it _kill_ you to be _happy_ for me?”

Frowning, Trapper stared at Hawkeye, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m _happy_ for ya. Really.”

“You wanna try that again and put some feeling into it?”

“I am!” It was a weak protest, but Trapper couldn’t be accused of not trying.

Hawkeye decided it was probably as good as it was going to get, and dropped the subject. He pulled his jacket on, his brow creasing with irritation at the fact that it was noticeably out of style. “How do I look?”

Trapper scowled. “Why do you care? Tryin’a make yourself pretty for _Quentin_?”

Hawkeye’s shoulders sagged, but his jaw squared and his eyes hardened at the accusation. “Is _that_ what you’re mad about? Is _that_ what you think this is?”

Trapper gave him a shrug, not bothering to hide the look of displeasure on his face. “Well, what am I s’posed to think? I don’t even _know_ this guy, but you run into ‘im in a goddamned coffee shop _once_ after almost twenty years, an’ suddenly he offers you a job, just like that? Somebody you ain’t so much as exchanged a _Christmas_ card with since your internship?” He jabbed an accusing finger at Hawkeye, who blinked at him, stunned. “Somebody who ‘ _knows about you_ ’ – like I don’t know what _that_ means – an’ I’m supposed to just _trust_ this guy?”

“ _No_ , Trapper! You’re supposed to trust _me_! The guy who’s been _faithful_ to you for the best part of a decade! I’m _not_ about to cheat on you with my _boss_! Besides, I roomed with Quentin in med school – he’s a good guy.”

Sniffing, Trapper fixed Hawkeye with an accusing glare. “Did you fuck him?”

Hawkeye’s body stiffened and he recoiled at the question. “I’m not about to dignify that with an answer.” He turned away, rummaging under the bed for his shoes, and a clean (ish) pair of socks.

Trapper snorted, folding his arms across his chest as he glared out of the window at the clear blue April sky. “Says it all…”

“Why the hell does it even _matter_ , anyway? Huh?” Hawkeye located his scruffy brown lace-ups, snatched them up, and threw himself into the chair beside the dresser, tugging angrily at the laces. “Is your faith in me so _pathetically_ _low_ that you have to start digging into potential relationships I may or may not have had nearly _twenty_ _years_ ago?”

Trapper’s eyes narrowed. That was practically an admission of guilt already. “I think I have a right to know – if you’re gonna be workin’ with him.”

The hurt was evident on Hawkeye’s face, and he hesitated, one sock on, the other naked foot perched on the edge of the chair. “You _really_ want to know?”

“I really wanna know.” Trapper leaned forward, and enunciated in a tone that was practically _scathing._ “Did you fuck Quentin McCauley?”

Hawkeye gave an exasperated sigh, and shook his head in disbelief. He squared his jaw, held his head high, and looked Trapper in the eye. “Not last week in the café, _no_. The tables didn’t look sturdy enough, so I decided to pass. But if it’s so damned important to you, then _yes_ , we had a thing in medical school.” He pulled his sock on and shoved his foot into his shoe, stamping it with unnecessary force. “ _There_ – are you happy?”

Trapper huffed and folded his arms. “Am I supposed to be?”

“You asked the goddamned question, so there’s your answer!” Hawkeye waved a hand and got to his feet, embarrassed that he was even having this conversation. This wasn’t how today was supposed to go! “It was a _fling._ A couple of one night stands. Just two guys fooling around, figuring themselves out. It was short, it was nothing serious, and we were _drunk_ for most of it! Like _you_ never had sex in college!”

“Oh, yeah, great point, Hawk! As long as he’s just some guy ya had sex with, now I _know_ his intentions are purely honourable!”

“The _point_ is meant to be that he’s _one of us_! And he’s got more to lose than we do, so he’s _not_ about to report me to the cops! And no, before you ask, _I’m not about to sleep with him_!”

His declaration was met with stony silence. Trapper stared at the blankets, still scowling. In the tense quiet that followed, Hawkeye finished tying his laces, finding his hands trembling slightly.

“Where did this come from all of a sudden?” he asked, his voice quieter now, anger replaced with a melancholy feeling of persecution. “You’ve never been the jealous type before.”

“You ain’t ever run off to play ‘doctors an’ doctors’ with some rich old queen you banged in med school before!”

Hawkeye recoiled slightly at his choice of words. “Trapper, I… this is… this is crazy talk! This has come out of _nowhere_! I flirt with everybody, I talk a lot of talk, and yes I’ve got a few notches on my bedpost, but you _know_ I wouldn’t do that! Last week when you were drooling over the waitress in the burger bar, you didn’t see me acting like this!”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“It’s just different.”

Hawkeye’s gaze hardened, and something far more powerful than anger began to rise in his gut: _indignation_. “Right… _that’s_ what’s bothering you.” He rose to his feet, quietly gearing his fight up a notch. “Because, let’s face it, my ex- _girlfriends_ constituted a good thirty percent of the entire workforce in our little corner of Korea, but _Quentin_ , a self-confessed gay man with whom I happen to have shared maybe… half a dozen evenings of drunken sexual experimentation, oh, _he’s_ a _threat_!”

Trapper glared at him. “I thought you said ‘a couple of times’. Now it’s _half a dozen_?”

“Who _cares_? It was _seventeen years ago_!” Hawkeye knew he was yelling, but he was beyond trying to reason with Trapper. He’d hit a brick all. Or rather, he’d hit a point in the argument he didn’t care to venture past. Besides, he didn’t have time for this. Defeated, he glanced at his watch. “I have to go,” he said, picking up his coat and turning to leave. “Quentin’s picking me up at eight.”

Trapper scoffed. “An’ I bet he doesn’t even have to try.”

Hawkeye paused, already halfway out the door. Trapper’s words caught him like a glancing blow when he wasn’t expecting it. And they stung. He couldn’t even _walk away_ from a fight now without Trapper getting in one last dig! Turning, he glanced over his shoulder, not even bothering to hide the hurt on his face, he shook his head in sad, stunned disappointment. “Why do you always have to go and _spoil_ everything?” With those words, he left, trudging through the door without a trace of the exuberance he’d had a few minutes before.

* * *

It was a bright, pleasant Easter Monday afternoon when Hawkeye’s working week came to a close. He’d stayed a little longer each day than was technically required, but he’d liked it that way. The work was interesting and stimulating, and it had spared him having to deal with Trapper for any longer than was absolutely necessary. As it transpired, they’d hardly crossed paths all weekend: Friday, he’d already sloped off to bed before Hawkeye had returned from his celebratory first-day drinks at the office, on Saturday he’d hauled himself off to some bar and didn’t return until the small hours, and on Sunday Hawkeye had found him passed out in front of the TV. He wasn’t sure what today would bring, but he wasn’t too eager to return home and find out.

Besides, given that he was carpooling with his boss, he had no choice but to stick around until Quentin finished his rounds, but that way Quentin could get him more involved with medical work that might otherwise be outside his official job description, whatever that might be. He still wasn’t sure.

And working with Quentin wasn’t a chore. The guy was every bit as fun, charming and entertaining as Hawkeye remembered him. Like Hawkeye, Quentin was a joker. He distracted anxious patients with humour, lightened the mood on the wards with playful practical jokes, and flirted outrageously with the nurses. Of course, as Hawkeye had learned many years ago, for Quentin, the flirting was a cover, but, aside from that little secret, Quentin was, to all extents and purposes, Trapper’s predecessor. In more ways than one. Right down to the lop-sided smile.

‘ _Oh hell, I have a_ type _!_ ’ Hawkeye realised, almost embarrassed by the idea as he watched Quentin grinning across the room at him.

It wasn’t an obvious resemblance, but it was there. It was more manner than appearance, really. In terms of looks, Quentin looked more like Hawkeye himself: tall and rangy, with jet black hair like Hawkeye had once possessed, and with classic movie star good looks to boot. The college crowd used to fancy they looked like brothers; Hawkeye reckoned he looked like Cary Grant.

That comparison was the one which sprang to mind as he sat beside Quentin in his little Mercedes, watching him smirk with relish as he revved the engine a little and shot Hawkeye another one of his patented grins. Hawkeye laughed and looked away, shaking his head.

The route they took back to Hawkeye’s apartment wasn’t the shortest, and it wasn’t the quickest, but after a busy weekend they both agreed it would be fun to take a drive. And so, with the rest of the day to themselves, they shot down the freeway with the radio blasting. Hawkeye actually laughed with joy! He hadn’t felt so free in a long time. He felt almost sorry when they finally pulled up outside his apartment building.

Quentin killed the engine, shooting Hawkeye another one of his Cary Grant smiles. “So, this is where I leave you for a couple’a days.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Hawkeye beamed, already looking forward to the next shift.

“You know… I almost can’t believe you _live_ here.” Quentin eyed the scruffy building with disapproval, and a little wariness.

Hawkeye grinned. “Oh, don’t worry about little old me. I know it _looks_ like a crack den but it’s really only a slum.”

Quentin didn’t laugh. “Is it safe?”

“Of _course_ it’s safe. I sleep with a baseball bat under my pillow.”

Quentin’s eyes widened in horror.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” Hawkeye laughed, only stopping when he realised that he’d rested his hand on Quentin’s arm and left it there for what might be an inappropriate amount of time. “Really, it’s fine. It’s a nice apartment, and that’s what matters. I once lived in a single room over the top of a late night casino! I mean sure, the building is a dump, the hallways are freezing and the neighbours are assholes, but… the neighbours are _always_ assholes, and… once you’re inside it’s… really kind of okay. Reasonable décor and… minimal fungal spores. What more could a guy ask for?”

Quentin leaned forward and squinted through the windscreen at the looming grey monolith in front of them, criss-crossed with ancient black fire escape walkways and treacherous looking stairs. It was starting to rain, the droplets appearing in tiny spots on the glass, and a gentle patter just about audible on the roof. The handsome doctor shook his head and sighed. “It tears me up thinking of you living like this.”

Hawkeye winced. Although he’d come clean early on about his discharge from the army and subsequent employment troubles, he didn’t like to think of his situation as _shocking._ That would almost be an admittance of failure. “I get by…”

But Quentin wouldn’t settle for idle reassurances. “It isn’t _right_! You were the best of us! The brightest, the most gifted, the one with all the answers! You shouldn’t _be_ getting by – you should be _thriving_! You deserve so much _more_ than this.” He seemed to take Hawkeye’s situation almost personally – maybe out of suddenly-rekindled friendship, or maybe out of political fury. Hawkeye couldn’t tell. But he was mad and he wasn’t mincing his words. There was an emotion in his voice that Hawkeye almost couldn’t deal with. He’d spent so long coming to terms with his lot in life, hearing somebody else’s rage not only brought it all back but moved him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“Yeah, well…” He forced a smile. “It’s just the way life goes.”

“It’s _criminal_!”

Hawkeye fell silent. Sometime over recent years, he’d resigned himself to his status in life as an outcast. “Yes, it is. But what can you do? There’s not too many hospitals looking to hire blue-discharges – the patients tend to get all shifty when you ask them to turn their heads and cough. So, this is my life. For the past nine years…”

His acceptance of his lot, somewhat out of character compared to the Hawkeye Quentin had once known, seemed to catch his employer by surprise. But Quentin took him at his word. “I’m sorry. You probably got over it years ago, and here’s me digging it all up again. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“You didn’t insult me! Do I look insulted? I’m fine! I’m… _flattered_ , really.”

Quentin sighed, turning towards him with a squeak of leather as the rain began to grow in intensity, filling the silence with a steadily growing rattle of water on metal. “It’s just… when I look at you I can’t help but see that genius kid from college who wiped the floor with the rest of the class every semester despite sitting half the exams with a hangover!”

Hawkeye laughed. Those were good memories – even the hangovers. Back when he was something special. Back when he was somebody. “What can I say? I was one of the crazy kids.”

Quentin smiled warmly. “You haven’t changed.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find I’ve changed more than you think,” Hawkeye said softly.

“Nah. It’s still there. You’ve still got that sparkle in your eyes.”

Hawkeye laughed and looked away. “Oh, stop! What about _you_ – look at you! Still so goddamned perfect – not a grey hair in sight! It’s nauseating! It’s not fair! How do you _do_ it?”

“It’s called hair dye – you weren’t supposed to ask.” Quentin shot him a playful smirk and a conspiratorial wink.

“I couldn’t tell. Youth looks good on you.” Hawkeye couldn’t stop grinning. He had butterflies… Oh, it had been so long since he’d had butterflies! “It’s been great seeing you again. It really has.”

The smile broadened. “It has, hasn’t it? Tell you what, how about I risk leaving the Mercedes here and you show me this nice apartment of yours. I’ve got the afternoon to kill.”

Hawkeye’s heart jolted. He recognised a ‘can I come in for a coffee?’ when he heard it. He shouldn’t be excited. His heart shouldn’t be pounding – not when he knew he had to say no. His smile vanished, and he looked away, gazing forlornly at the dashboard. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

The words were a poor choice. His refusal was a confession all in itself.

It wasn’t lost on Quentin. “Oh, you don’t, huh?” There was almost an air of smugness to his question.

Hawkeye had to let him down, even though it actually _pained_ him. He was almost loath to cut this particular avenue of conversation short, but… this wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be getting all hot under the collar at the prospect of coffee with his boss! Not when…

He took a deep breath. “I’m involved with someone.”

Quentin’s face fell, and his shoulders slumped. “As in serious?”

Hawkeye winced. There was a sickening sense of regret that he just couldn’t shake, no matter how much he told himself that he shouldn’t be feeling it. “As in _living together_.”

The disappointment in Quentin’s eyes was obvious.

And it hurt.

In spite of himself, Hawkeye almost didn’t want to cement the truth in words. In some parallel universe somewhere, he imagined himself a bachelor again, inviting Quentin up for coffee, spending the evening chatting away over old times, getting reacquainted… And then instantly, he flashed forward a year or so, imagined how different his life would be, living with a wealthy doctor instead of Trapper, working in that beautiful clinic, alongside a beautiful man whose smile still gave him butterflies.

He shouldn’t be thinking it! Those butterflies had no right to be there!

Quentin exhaled, looking away as if embarrassed. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.” The apology came out of Hawkeye’s mouth before he even knew what it was he was sorry for.

Quentin shook his head. “It would have been nice to have known.”

An extra helping of guilt landed itself squarely on Hawkeye’s shoulders. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with that little piece of information. He’d been too busy… getting reacquainted? Learning the ropes? Reminiscing?

 _Flirting_. That’s what he’d been doing. That’s why he’d kept quiet.

“I know. I should have said something. I’m sorry – I’m lousy at this. You know me, I’m not used to commitment. And I’ve _never_ been able to keep myself from smiling at a pretty face.”

“He’s something special then? Your guy?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well… I’m just saying, for a Casanova like you to settle down, he must be quite the dreamboat.”

Hawkeye froze, lost for words for one of the rare times in his life. He didn’t really think of Trapper as much of a dreamboat these days. Dreamboats didn’t piss away half their grocery budget behind a bar, come home late and get into dumb arguments with their boyfriends…

Suddenly, it was like someone had held up a mirror to the dismal, sorry state of his personal life, and he didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t know what to say. His mouth opened and closed as he was left feeling for all the world like a fish that had just been yanked from its pleasant, familiar pond of scathing witticisms and lewd remarks and left flopping about on the dry bank with nothing to say for itself. There was no joke that could take the edge off the disillusionment he was feeling. There was no saucy comment that would transform his love life into something other than the sorry, joyless drought it had become. And so, not wanting to lie, Hawkeye plumped for honesty: “You know that blue discharge the army gave me? Well… he’s the guy I got caught with. His wife didn’t take it too well, and we’ve… been together ever since. For nine years.” He had been aiming to put the emphasis on the longevity of their relationship. It didn’t work. His tone made it sound like a custodial sentence.

“Oh. I see. It’s like that is it?”

“It’s not _all_ bad!”

Quentin gave him a look. “I never said it was… but it doesn’t sound good.”

Hawkeye cringed and pressed a hand to his forehead. It seemed the more he opened his mouth, the deeper he was digging himself. “It’s… it’s complicated, alright?”

Quentin gave a snort of disbelief. “How is it complicated? Do you _want_ to be with the guy or not?”

“Do I…? I mean, I haven’t… It’s not that simple! He left his _wife_ for me! I cost him his career! His family, his whole life!”

“So… you think you _owe_ him or something?”

“I can’t just _leave_ him!”

“Yes, you can.” The simple, finality of his statement was like lightning from the heavens. “If you’re not happy.” A pause, and a pointed look followed. “You’re not, are you?”

“I… I just…” Hawkeye’s head was spinning, his heart pounding. This whole conversation had totally run away from him! _Leave_ Trapper? How had that even entered his mind? How had he ended up here? “Oh God…” He could feel himself tearing up. And then, a moment later, he felt Quentin’s hand close around his own.

“Come on, Hawk. Let it out.”

His words were simple, but powerful – _too_ powerful – and Hawkeye, who had been crying out for _years_ for somebody to just _talk_ to, felt utterly, hopelessly weak. The understanding man now clutching his hand tenderly in his own was his only confidant, and the words spilled from him before he could stop them. “Things are tough right now. Okay, things are… lousy. I admit that. But he’s not… he’s not a _bad_ _guy_. There’s some things that happened, alright? He lost his kids, and… and it was because of me. Because _I_ got involved – I got in a fight with his wife – and she cut him off. And it’s… it’s really got to him, you know? I mean of _course_ it got to him – they’re his kids, he loves them – but it’s _done_ something to him. And, over the past couple of years… I thought it would get better, but it’s getting _worse_.”

“Worse how?” Quentin’s brow was furrowed in concern. His hand tightened a little around Hawkeye’s.

Hawkeye sighed. “Jesus, where do I start? He’s moody, he drinks… and he won’t… _listen_ … to _anything!_ I say I’m sorry and he shuts me down! I try and talk to him and he shuts me out. The only comfort he seems to want right now is… is _sex_ , and frankly I’m not exactly… _feeling it_ lately.”

“ _You_ not _feeling it_? Since when? I remember what your sex drive is like!” If this was an attempt to lighten the mood, it failed.

Hawkeye bit his lip. This wasn’t a conversation he had been prepared to have! For someone with what he hoped was a fairly free and easy attitude when it came to all things carnal, having a conversation about problems in the bedroom was surprisingly awkward. He swallowed, and closed his eyes. “Since I realised… he never actually _touches_ me.” There it was. The confession hung in the air, like he couldn’t even utter any more words. He couldn’t delve into the implications of this revelation; he had barely been able to cope with the realisation in itself. Just hearing it said felt painfully telling. “I mean, he does when he _wants_ something, or if he’s _drunk_ enough, but I don’t think he really enjoys it. He just…”

Hawkeye sighed, massaging his temple, ever-so aware of Quentin sitting beside him, hanging on every word of his confession. There was something alarmingly intimate about this, but Hawkeye couldn’t stop. He had a confidant and he had to let it all out.

“You know how I feel about sex,” he continued, his voice low, in case somebody overheard. “Even if it’s a one night stand, you’re supposed to _relish_ it; worship that person with your body; whether it’s a fierce, passionate moment of pure heat and lust and drive, or a slow, tender, kiss-you-all-the-way-up-from-your-toes-and-back-again kind of night, or… even those _wonderful_ , ridiculous moments in life where you fall off the mattress and wind up laughing so hard it’s more _funny_ than it is sexy. It’s still something special, you know?” Eye contact was too intense for this conversation, and Hawkeye looked away, staring through the rain-soaked windshield. “Making love is an art form,” he said softly. And then, his face fell, his voice becoming strained with bitterness. “Me and Trapper – we don’t make love. We _fuck_. Or rather he fucks me, and I just…” He shook his head. “I don’t think he even cares what I do. So I don’t do anything. I just let him…” There he ran out of words.

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

The statement, no matter how true, immediately put Hawkeye on the defensive. And yet, the moment he spoke, tears came to his eyes. He tried to push them back, tried to get control over himself, but his words came out as a painful sob. “This isn’t him! He never used to be like this! It’s the drink, and it’s… it’s grief and… and I don’t know what else! But it used to just... _work_ , you know? He was my best friend and my lover and my _everything_ and it just worked so _well_! Why can’t I get that back?”

Quentin watched him quietly, his chin cradled in his hand, his elbow propped against the steering wheel. “And how long’s it been,” he asked gently, “since it worked?”

Hawkeye sniffed, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “Couple’a years,” he admitted reluctantly.

There was a pause, and Quentin seemed to consider his next words carefully. “So how much longer does it have to _not_ work before you’re willing walk away?”

Silence descended again. Hawkeye was lost. He wondered briefly if there was some kind of mathematical equation for this, if years of happiness offset against years of misery. “I don’t know,” he admitted sadly. “It’s been _nine_ _years_! I’ve never been with someone for that long. And we’ve been through so much together! I don’t know if I can walk away from that. How do I even start?” Hawkeye looked up. Quentin’s eyes were wide, his expression earnest and appealing, and Hawkeye couldn’t look away. They’d moved closer, inches apart now, the whole world shrinking to the space in that tiny sports car. Quentin’s hand moved up to his face, and his fingers traced Hawkeye’s jawline, his palm pressing gently to his cheek. And Hawkeye made no move to stop him when he kissed him.

‘ _Shit. No…_ ’

It felt… nice. It felt like being twenty-two again. It felt like being young and free and foolish and having drunken sex on the floor of their med school dorm room. It felt like drinking too much on the night before an early morning lecture and not caring that they’d regret it. It felt like a hundred things Hawkeye had long thought himself far too old for, and now he was doing it all again. And it felt so good!

It also felt like cheating. He knew better than this. He pulled away, turned his head and stared at the dashboard.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“That’s a lousy excuse if ever I heard one.”

“I have a _boyfriend_.”

“You have a ball and chain weighing you down – _that’s_ what you have!”

Hawkeye stared at the man beside him, his blood pounding in his ears, his body thrumming with a strange combination of desire and rage. Was Quentin talking sense? He couldn’t tell any more. This whole situation was spiralling out of control, emotions flying everywhere. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t think…

A hand made its way to his thigh again. “Come on. Let’s get some of your things. We can go to a hotel…”

He knew he was shaking. His whole body tingled and his stomach was lurching with an unpleasant sinking sensation. But somewhere, some part of him held on. “No.” It didn’t feel like him talking. Something inside had taken over, and Hawkeye was happy to let it. “No,” he said again, shaking his head.

Quentin stared at him. “Do you have any idea what I’m offering you?”

“ _Yes_ , I _know_! I’ve been _living_ it this past week!”

“Not just the _job_ – I’m talking everything! You don’t have to live like this! Don’t you remember, back in med school? That club I took you to in Chicago? The _life_ you could have?” Hawkeye hesitated, and Quentin’s expression and tone hardened. “He’s not _worth it_!”

Something in his voice hit a nerve, and Hawkeye felt his resolve grow. “I know, but I can’t do this to him. I can’t go with you. Not like this.”

There was an awkward silence. Neither man moved. The hand on Hawkeye’s leg tightened. “Are you _really_ going to let your life get dictated by a stupid mistake you made nearly ten years ago?!”

Hawkeye’s head whipped up and his eyes flashed with anger. “Trapper was _not_ a mistake!”

“He sounds like an asshole!” Again, Hawkeye was taken aback by the man’s tone, which immediately softened again as he tried a different angle. “Come on, don’t be an idiot. You’ll be better off this way.”

“Is that your opinion as the guy trying to _help_ or the guy trying to get lucky?”

“What? After what you told me, you’re not seriously defending this jerk, are you?”

Hawkeye’s expression darkened, and he recoiled. “I’m not defending him, I’m insulting _you_! What I told you was _personal_ – and _now_ you’re going to turn around and use it to get in my pants!”

“Oh, don’t be so sanctimonious! Like _you_ wouldn’t do the same thing!”

Hawkeye felt like he was punched in the gut, his thoughts scattering. A wave of guilt consumed him at those words – words that took him back to a place he didn’t want to go. “Things are different now. _I’m_ different. Lousy relationship or not, I’m no cheater! Now, could you move your hand, please?”

Quentin’s tone softened a little, but his hand didn’t budge. “Look, you shouldn’t be living like this! You shouldn’t be _here_! Just let me… let me sort something out for you. I will… get you an apartment, somewhere nice, somewhere you’ll be safe. Okay? Just trust me?”

Hawkeye pulled away, but Quentin closed in on him. There were hands on him, grasping at his clothes, sliding up his leg. He shuddered. Again, he found himself being kissed, and he turned his head away. “No…”

Quentin gave an exasperated sigh, his breath hot on Hawkeye’s cheek. “Don’t give me that bullshit – I’m not buying it.”

Hawkeye tensed up as the hand crept higher, and the lips that had been pressed against his now found his neck. In spite of himself, he found himself remembering another time, many years ago, when those same lips had explored his skin, done things that nobody had ever done to him before – things that Trapper hardly _ever_ did…

Hawkeye shuddered. It felt… _good_ , to be touched like this, in the way that Trapper never did. Good, but wrong. Hawkeye squirmed, twisting away. His eyes screwed shut and his head spinning, he planted his hands squarely on Quentin’s chest and _shoved_. “I said ‘no’, goddamn it! Would you _cut it out_?!”

“Hawkeye! What the hell…?!”

Freed from Quentin’s grasp, Hawkeye grappled for the door handle, his hands shaking. It wouldn’t budge. It felt like an age, but it could only have been a few seconds before Hawkeye realised the door was locked, and tugged at the catch. The door gave way at last, and he scrambled out into the parking lot.

The rain was pelting down now, soaking him instantly. As he stalked towards the back door to the apartment building, he was hazily aware of a car door slamming somewhere behind him and Quentin yelling at him through the rain.

“Hawkeye, come on! Don’t be like that!”

A hand caught his arm, and he wheeled round. “Is that what this was all about? The job offer, the ride to work… Is that what ‘helping me out’ means to you?”

Quentin gave a non-committal shrug and looked away. “I figured it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Right… meaning I get the benefit of gainful employment and _you_ get the benefit of your own personal live-in rent boy. Is that it?!”

“That’s not what I–”

“And Trapper’s nothing more than an inconvenience, am I right?”

“Hey – _you_ were the one who said things were lousy!”

“And my problems are the _perfect_ opportunity for you to swoop in and _rescue_ me!”

“I’m trying to _help_ you!”

“Of course you are. And helping _yourself_ to a swift grope at the same time!”

“ _Hey_! I took a _risk_ employing you! I did you a favour! You should be _grateful_!”

And suddenly, the sweet, generous man who’d seemed so eager to help him out was jabbing a finger in his face, his voice raised, his expression angry.

Hawkeye’s eyes narrowed, and a shudder is distaste crossed his features. If there was one thing he’d gotten used to these past two years, it was angry guys yelling at him. “Grateful. Right. I get it. And I _get_ what you were expecting in terms of _gratitude_.” He sniffed, pausing to wipe the rainwater from his face as he fixed his employer with a cold, hard stare. “Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to _gratefully_ decline your gracious and very _generous offer_. But _thank you_ for your consideration.”

“You’re making a _big_ mistake…”

Hawkeye’s lip curled. “Get back in your car, Doctor MacCauley. Before your hair starts to run.”

With that, he turned and walked away. It wasn’t until he got inside the door that the reality of everything that had just happened truly hit him, and he started to shake.

* * *

Trapper wasn’t home, which was to be expected. Furthermore he didn’t return until after dark, by which time Hawkeye had long since slunk off to bed, alone. Hawkeye had, much to his own embarrassment, downed more than a healthy amount of Scotch, sitting on the couch fighting back furious tears. The drink was enough to numb the twisted, angry knot in his gut, but not enough to make him sleep; not enough to stop his mind from replaying the events of the evening over and over. Instead, he lay awake into the small hours, feeling very much the hypocrite, and, when Trapper finally made his way through the front door of the apartment, he stirred.

The sound of Trapper’s key in the door late at night, just after closing time, had conditioned Hawkeye with an almost Pavlovian response: his heart jolted him awake, and he scrambled out of bed, groping for his cardigan as the chill air made his skin prickle with goose-bumps. He snapped on the light to aid his search, squinting as his eyes adjusted. Wide awake now, he pulled the scruffy garment on and headed for the living room.

Trapper knew well enough that his boozing had become a bone of contention. The arguments bothered him, but not enough to stop. He just… needed a drink too damned often. His one compromise was that he did his level best to sneak back into the apartment and hopefully avid a row. On this occasion, he managed to hang up his coat and hat with minimal clattering or swearing, for which he was rather proud, but a moment later, he turned to see a distinctly unhappy Hawkeye standing in the doorway to their bedroom, silhouetted against the glow of the reading lamp.

Hawkeye didn’t raise his voice – he’d long since given up on such fruitless efforts – but instead he loitered at the threshold, his naked toes tensing into the carpet. “Where were you?”

Trapper tried to recall, then gave up. “A few places.” He gave a gesture as non-committal as his words.

“I was worried.” There was more melancholy in Hawkeye’s voice tonight, but in his intoxicated state, Trapper didn’t notice.

“Whad’ya expect me to do, Hawk?” Trapper moved closer, hands shoved in pockets. “Sit around an’ wait for ya to come home like a good li’l woman? Have yer dinner waitin’ on the table at six o’clock, an’ yer slippers by the fire?”

“That’s not what I–”

“ _Good_! ‘Cause you ain’t gettin’ it!” His outburst was sudden, seeming to even take Trapper himself by surprised. As if caught by a stab of remorse, he changed his tone a little, but the scowl on his face remained. “Look – I got _bored_. So I went _out._ Rolled up to a couple of bars. Had a couple of drinks.” He waved a hand dismissively, turning away, his gaze falling on the coffee table as he did so. The bottle of fifteen year old Scotch Hawkeye’s father had sent them for Christmas stood as damning testament to Hawkeye’s own sobriety, an empty glass beside it as Exhibit B. “I see I wasn’t the only one.”

Hawkeye ducked his head, but shrugged. “I had a _really_ bad day.”

“Yeah?” Trapper’s expression softened for a moment, and he hovered on the brink of sympathy, only for his scowl to slip back into place when Hawkeye refused to open up any further. “Well, you an’ me both.”

Hawkeye gawped at him, half stunned, half angry. “You’re really going to hold this against me? I mean, I’m not the one who…” The words ‘ _I’m the one who cheated_ ’ ghosted across his mind, and Hawkeye fell silent. “Forget it.”

Trapper sniffed. “Fine. It’s _forgotten_.” He turned away and made his way over to the cramped little kitchenette, reaching out to lean on the counter. “I’m gonna have a cup of coffee. Don’t mind me.” He made a show of banging about in the cabinets, slamming the coffee jar onto the counter, and then the mug. He glanced over his shoulder, realising Hawkeye was hovering. Something was clearly on his mind, and Trapper wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear it. As much as he tried not to be, he was still ratty as hell, and hearing Hawkeye rant about how _dreadful_ it had been working in a clinic again when Trapper was facing another day of mopping floors was liable to make him blow a gasket. “You workin’ tomorrow?” he asked by way of casual conversation.

Hawkeye shook his head. “No.”

“Oh. Well, then I guess _you_ can sit ‘round the apartment all day an’ wait around for _me_ instead.”

No response.

“When are you back in?”

“I’m not.”

Trapper looked up, Hawkeye’s words finally penetrating the miasma of drink and clueing him in to the idea that something might be genuinely wrong. “You’re not?”

Tense and uneasy, Hawkeye licked his lips, swallowed, and offered up the swiftest version he could of that evening’s events: “I quit.”

Trapper’s eye widened, and he wheeled round, tossing the spoon onto the counter with a clatter. “Are you _kiddin’_ me?! After all the… the singin’ an’ the bullshit about your job title an’ waxin’ ecstatic over _Saint_ Quentin, you fuckin’ _quit_?” A flash of something darker than simple worry glinted in Trapper’s eyes. “Somethin’ happen?”

Hawkeye shook his head and stared at the carpet. “No. Nothing happened. It just… didn’t work out. That’s all.” He wasn’t sure what made him lie. Maybe it was shame. Maybe it was fear that Trapper would go ballistic – he’d been jealous enough over his _history_ with Quentin, let alone… whatever it was that had happened in the car that evening. He couldn’t handle another explosion. Or maybe it was guilt that, on some level, he’d _wanted_ to give in. Trapper didn’t need to know that; didn’t need to be told how close he’d come to infidelity; how he’d entertained thoughts of what his life would have been like had he ridden off into the sunset with the rich doctor in his flashy Mercedes, how much _better_ things would have been. And then, as he shuddered to remember what had followed Quentin’s offer, he felt disgustingly low for even considering it. No, Trapper didn’t need to hear that. Best to stay quiet. Let it lie. Move on. And now, as he watched his partner struggle to conceal his intoxication, shovelling coffee granules into a mug with an unsteady hand, Hawkeye tried not to dwell on those thoughts. “Could you get me a coffee, too? I think I might sit up for a while.”

Trapper looked at him, his expression a worrying mix of concern and suspicion. He _knew_ there was something not being said, but, for the time being, he let it slide. His anger subsided. His perceived competition was out of the picture. He simply took out Hawkeye’s favourite mug and set it on the counter. “Sure. I’ll bring it in.”

Their earlier sharpness was forgotten – for now, at least – and Hawkeye returned to bed. A couple of minutes later and he was propped up cosily, a stack of pillows at his back, and Trapper was placing a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand beside him. He left it to cool for a moment, picking up his copy of ‘ _Last of the Mohicans_ ’ and flicking through the pages as Trapper stripped and began to change into his pyjamas. As he read, his right hand rose instinctively to his lips. Without thinking, he slipped his thumb into his mouth, hooked his fingers over his nose, and began to suck gently, seeking comfort.

Trapper chuckled. “I’m beginnin’ to think you got some kinda oral fixation goin’ on.”

Hawkeye looked up. Suddenly embarrassed, he snatched his hand away.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s cute.”

Grimacing, Hawkeye wiped his hand on the sheets and scowled into his book. He didn’t think it was cute; it was a nervous habit he’d had on and off at times of stress, but it wasn’t one he liked to entertain. A grown man of forty sucking his thumb was just… embarrassing!

“You always done that?”

Hawkeye stuffed his hand under the blankets. “I used to, ‘til I was twenty-six. Guys in dorm rooms tend to land on you kinda hard when you’re the resident thumb-sucker. I gave it up for bed-wetting – they were more forgiving of that.”

Trapper laughed, a little too loud, as he was wont to do when drunk. “Well, I think it’s cute,” he said, kneeling on the bed to crawl closer and coax Hawkeye’s hand into his own. “So sue me.”

“Yeah, you said…” Hawkeye stared glumly at his book. He didn’t want to divulge that his ‘cute’ habit was usually a sign of distress; that it had started when his mother was hospitalised, returned with a vengeance when she passed away, and continued through his college career right up until finals. His joking was his only way to hide his discomfort. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to disclose what had happened that afternoon. As much as he needed Trapper listen patiently and to hold him and rub his neck the way he liked and tell him it was okay, and that they’d be alright without the extra money, he knew the conversation wouldn’t go like that. Trapper didn’t do things like that for him. Not anymore.

Instead, he lay in silence, one hand clutching his book, the other being squeezed by Trapper in a way that reminded him all too clearly of the way somebody else had squeezed it a few hours earlier. ‘ _I should’ve gone with him_.’ The thought hit him out of left field, unbidden and unwelcome. Overwhelmed, and desperate for reassurance that was a long time coming, he glanced over at Trapper across the pillows.

Trapper’s face lit up. “There’s my guy!” His voice was slurred. His breath smelt of alcohol. But the look in his eyes, however intoxicated, was one of genuine affection, and that was something Hawkeye desperately craved. He rolled over, wrapping his arms around Trapper’s middle and cuddling close, his head resting on his chest.

He immediately felt strange. It was an act he had once taken great delight in, but now felt stilted and forced; a bizarre, melancholic parody of affection. Trapper, however, remained blissfully oblivious, and chuckled. “Guess we ain’t drinkin’ those coffees, huh?”

“Sorry.” The suggestive joke was not lost on Hawkeye. He was just… choosing to ignore it as he retreated deeper into the darkness of his thoughts. He lay in silence, enjoying the _pretence_ of tranquillity, knowing full well that it was little more than a temporary lull in the storm.

Coffees forgotten on the nightstand, Trapper wrapped himself around Hawkeye. For a brief moment, on the surface at least, they were like a normal, happy couple again, cosy and affectionate. They met, nose to nose under the blankets, arms wrapped around each other, Trapper stroking Hawkeye’s back, half soothing, half hoping for some kind of pleasurable reaction. “Hey?” he murmured softly.

Hawkeye looked up at him in the darkness. Trapper smelt like cheap beer, as it often did, but his expression was kinder than it had been in days, and Hawkeye’s heart swelled with relief to see him looking at him like that again, instead of scowling into the corner in a jealous sulk. “What?”

“Don’t you worry about that lousy clinic job. I know you miss doctorin’ an’ all, but it ain’t worth bein’ miserable over. Somethin’ else’ll come up.”

Grunting in reply, Hawkeye ducked his head. Any other job, and Trapper would have been livid if he’d quit. Suddenly he knew exactly why he was being all sweetness and light over this one, and it didn’t make Hawkeye feel any better.

“Besides, even four days o’ workin’ a job like that must’a netted you a nice little paycheck! Right?”

Hawkeye gave a quiet snort of a laugh. “I don’t think I’m getting paid, Trap. But nice try.”

“Oh.” Trapper sighed, his hand beginning to rub a soothing – if perhaps patronising – path up and down Hawkeye’s arm. “Some friend Quentin turned out to be.”

“Yeah…” Hawkeye gave a nervous chuckle. ‘ _You don’t know the half of it…_ ’

“Probably only hired you to get in your pants…”

That was too close to home. Trapper had no idea how much his words stung, but Hawkeye was damned if he was about to let on. He turned away, facing the wall but allowing Trapper to spoon him, curled around his back with his arms around him. They lay like that for several minutes, Trapper’s breath drifting past Hawkeye’s ear in a slow, steady rhythm. It was… nice. Relaxing.

And then, just as he was beginning to think Trapper had fallen asleep beside him, it started: he was subtle at first, just drawing closer, but the pattern had been repeated enough times for Hawkeye to recognise it long before the groping and the grinding started. Trapper’s hand latched onto his hip, his fingers creeping under his shirt, holding on as he began to thrust languidly against Hawkeye’s backside.

Hawkeye shrugged him away. “Trapper…”

“What? I thought you wanted comfortin’…”

“I _did_ but…” He gave a weary sigh, and glanced over his shoulder. “Look, I’ve had a lousy day, and you’ve got work tomorrow.”

“So? A little exercise might help me sleep…”

An exaggerated eye roll from Hawkeye. “Help _you_ , maybe…” Trapper’s hands started to roam, and Hawkeye shoved him away. “Would you knock that off already?!”

With a disappointed huff, Trapper rolled over, retreating to his own side of the bed. The roaming hands had gone, and taken the comforting arms with them. Hawkeye shivered a little in the chill.

They lay in silence, Trapper staring at the ceiling, Hawkeye at the wall.

“Ya _do_ know,” Trapper said at last, “it’s been almost a year now?”

Hawkeye swallowed, tense and awkward under this line of questioning. “No, I didn’t.” A lie of sorts. He thought on it and corrected Trapper’s estimate. “Actually, it’s been six months.”

“Huh. I don’t remember.”

Pulling a face, Hawkeye tried not to recall the night when Trapper had banged the last nail into the coffin of their love life. “Yeah, well I do.”

“I figure it seems longer when you’re the one that keeps gettin’ the cold shoulder all the damned time! What the hell’s eatin’ you anyways?”

“I _told_ you! I had a bad day! I just wanted…” Hawkeye trailed off. He wasn’t sure _what_ he wanted, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to get it any time soon, so what was the point? He should just stop trying.

“Well, are ya gonna _tell_ me or just sit there gettin’ your panties in a bunch an’ poutin’ at the wall?” Hawkeye didn’t reply. Trapper snorted and rolled over, presenting his back to him and thumping his pillow. “Christ, it’s like livin’ with my ex-wife.”

That did it. Hawkeye threw back the covers, grabbed his pillow, and scrambled out of bed.

“Where the hell are you goin’?”

Hawkeye didn’t respond. He just snagged the blanket from the foot of the bed and stalked off to the living room, slamming the door behind him.

It would only take a few minutes for Trapper to calm down and realise the impact of what he’d said, but by the time he emerged from the bedroom, contrite and subdued, Hawkeye was already curled up on the couch with his eyes closed, silent and still.

Awkwardly, Trapper perched on the arm of the couch, his hands gripping his knees tightly as he watched Hawkeye breathing softly, the tip of his thumb clasped habitually between his lips. He ached to reach out and touch him, to run his fingers through his soft salt-and-pepper hair and make it all better with a few words.

But he knew a few words weren’t going to cut it. And he knew better than to touch Hawkeye after a fight. “I’m sorry,” he tried weakly. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just the drink talkin’.”

Inhaling deeply, Hawkeye opened his eyes, staring at Trapper over the top of his blanket. The apology, as much as he yearned to believe it, was hollow. Trapper would say this now and act exactly the same way tomorrow night, and the next. What was the point in even retaliating? What was the point in any of it? “Trapper?” he replied wearily, “just so you know, the drink’s been talking for so long now, I think I’ve forgotten what you sound like.”

Trapper fell silent. Hawkeye’s words clearly stunned him, but whatever long term impact they may have had was soon lost in the fog. Instead, Trapper merely sighed, shaking his head at the mess he’d woven for himself. “What the hell’s happened to us, Hawk?”

Hawkeye shook his head, exhausted so far beyond even trying to get into this discussion that he didn’t even have it in him to raise his voice anymore. “I’ve got a fair idea. I’d tell you, but you probably won’t remember in the morning. Now go to bed.”

Hesitating, Trapper glanced at the bedroom door, and back to Hawkeye. Hawkeye had already closed his eyes. Clearly, he would be going to bed alone tonight. Perhaps that was for the best. It was late. Hawkeye was mad. Trapper was drunk. The night was creeping on. With a weary sigh, Trapper heaved himself from the couch, and took himself back to bed. Alone.

The door closed, and once again Hawkeye’s eyes flickered open, and he lifted his head watching as the glow of the bedroom light surrounding the door suddenly snapped off, plunging the room into darkness.

He settled deeper into his nest on the couch, burrowing into his pillow. Trapper had a posed a very good question – what _had_ happened to them? – and Hawkeye was to lie awake much of the night pondering exactly the messed up chain of events that had brought them to this sorry state. It wasn’t until after Trapper had got up, dressed, and headed out to work that Hawkeye finally managed to get some sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This marks the end of the current story. 'In All Kinds of Weather' continues next Saturday, with an additional brief extra to be posted on Wednesday. All comments and messages welcome, and you can also follow me on Tumblr @ hawkeye-piercintyre for random MASH posts and updates.


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